Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Winter 2016 | Volume 6 Number 1 | page 2
Sexuality, Spirituality and the Body: The Art and Science of Somatic Psychotherapy
This forward-looking conference explores the exciting future of somatic psychology and bodymind therapies. Healing the whole person by working with the energies and emotions of our embodiment leads us to questions about the spirituality of each human-being and about the ways in which our sexual desires gird so many of our energy blocks and emotional conflicts. The 2016 USABP Conference will investigate the discovery of our embodied spirituality and the connections of bodymind therapy with other path-breaking fields such as transpersonal psychology, ecopsychology, and the traditions of spiritual healing. Also to be investigated are the challenges of working with sexuality in the context of bodymind practice — how is our sexual life, and the sexual lives of those whom we help in the clinical setting, to be integrated with our emotional, spiritual and somatic being-in-the-world. Read All About it! Starting on page 34
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Somatic Psychotherapy Today Our Feature Stories
36 Welcome to the USABP Congress Sexuality, Spirituality and the Body: The Art and Science of Somatic Psychology
38 On the Significance of “Bodymind” Visioning for the Profession and for the Planet By Barnaby B. Barratt 42 Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Body. An Interview with Joan Borysenko By Nancy Eichhorn 48 Gender Based Changes to Manage Stress: How Behavior and Nutrition Play a Part in our Relationships. An Interview with John Gray By Nancy Eichhorn 54 In Honor of Eugene T. Gendlin: Somatic Pioneer By Ann Weiser Cornell
58 Dancing with Gravity By Darrell Sanchez 62 Into the Void: A Journey of Longing, Love and Eros By Lisa Loustaunau
66 Being with the Traumatized Person By Marcel Duclos 68 Sunflower Mind: Exploring our Embodied Relational Process By Serge Prengel
Read us on your smartphone: install the app using this link: http://bit.ly/IssuuOnAndroid
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Somatic Psychotherapy Today Our Feature Stories
72 Addressing Sexuality in Bioenergetic Therapy By Laurie Ure
78 Birth as an Act of Sex By Karen Ehrlich 82 Spirituality, Sexuality, The Body and Aging with Marjorie L. Rand, John Walker Davis, Laura Sullivan 86 Opening Your Heart to Love By Olaf Trapp 94 Welcome to the 15th European Congress of Body Psychotherapy The Embodied Self in a Dis-embodied Society
97 The Embodied Self in Philosophy and Life By Christine Caldwell
98 The Psychopathology of Disembodiment and Reconnection Through Enactment A Conversation with Maxine Sheets Johnstone By Nancy Eichhorn 102 The Mind . . . The Embodied Mind . . . The Enactive Mind . . . The Train Mind By Genovino Ferri
108 The Common Ground in Body Psychotherapy A Conversation with Michael C. Heller By Nancy Eichhorn
Volunteer Magazine Staff Nancy Eichhorn Editor, Layout Design Diana Houghton Whiting Cover Design
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Our Usual Fare
10 From the USABP President 20 Join the Conversation Beth Haessig By Nancy Eichhorn 12 Across the Pond By Jill van der Aa and Lidy Evertsen 112 Body Wise By Kamalamani 14 From APPPAH’s President Sandra Bardsley 130 Resources By Jacqueline A. Carleton assisted by Dawn Bhat and the 16 From the IBPJ Managing Editor USABP Interns By Jill van der Aa
Reviews and Reflections
116 Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy 22 The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Reviewed by Sarah Sperber Somatic Psychology Reviewed by Nancy Eichhorn 118 Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in 28 The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Psychotherapy Somatic Psychology Reflections by Halko Weiss Reviewed by Nancy Eichhorn 31 The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and 125 Verbal and Non-Verbal Somatic Psychology Communication in Reflections by Courtenay Young Psychotherapy 90 Eros/Power: Love in the Spirit of Inquiry Reflections by Gill Westland Reviewed by Nancy Eichhorn 128 Self-Compassion in Psychotherapy Reviewed by Kimberly Wang
Read our blog: www.SomaticPsychotherapyToday.com
Read us digitally: www.issuu.com/SomaticPsychotherapyToday
Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Winter 2016 | Volume 6 Number 1 | page 6
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From Our Editor
It’s conference share their creative processes and in turn time. Time to explore ways to possibly integrate new ideas engage and into our own clinical practice. There are interact, network symposiums, poster presentations, pull-out and collaborate, sessions and vendors along with pre- expand and conference workshops for those wanting to evolve. We hope focus deeper into specific content areas. And you will join SPT of course there’s the traditional gala event Magazine in with dinner and dancing. Providence, I personally look forward to connecting in Rhode Island, this person with the keynote speakers who July for the USABP Conference: Sexuality, generously shared their time with me, to Spirituality and the Body—the Art and meeting our contributors who took time to Science of Somatic Psychotherapy, and in write about their upcoming workshops, and Athens, Greece for the EABP Congress: The to personally thank our advertisers. There Embodied Self in a Dis-embodied Society. are so many options to choose from! I know We look forward to hearing keynote my time will be filled. addresses by colleagues who have dedicated Please keep an eye out for us and take the their professional lives to support and time to say, “Hi” in person. We appreciate promote somatic psychology, who have our readers and hope to encourage more of reached out to the world and let people our colleagues to join SPT Magazine’s know the power and presence of body professional community through psychotherapy and the modalities within subscription, article submission and guest that help people heal and grow. Association blogging. members are offering workshops so we can Warmly,
Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
From Our Awesome Cover Designer
Hello All,
What has been coming up for me a lot lately is priorities. With the winter holidays over and all that it entails I am having to get organized again. So having been a little derailed for a while its is nice to see the up coming conference. This is a great way to focus efforts toward continuing education and get the train back on the track. I would also like to thank all of the artist that have contributed to the covers of SPT over the years. There are covers that I was able to acknowledge and others that I could not find the artist names. I hope the new year finds everyone well and I look forward to what the next few months bring.
Sincerely, Diana Houghton Whiting, MA LPCC
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Somatic Psychotherapy Today | Winter 2016 | Volume 6 Number 1 | page 9
From the USABP President
Dear Somatic Psychotherapy Today Readers,
Did you ever notice that the way we go about filling up the space in our lives is often the very thing that makes us feel the emptiest?
I wonder what would happen if you felt the emptiness of this moment, right now, with full breath. Notice how magically it becomes full, all by itself, in your body . . . without doing or buying a single thing.
USABP is garnering a grand space to fill this July, with people like you. Come, taste, enjoy the fullness of this experience, of your breath, of our conference, of life itself. Being with whatever is alive right now in your body, in the company of fellow colleagues is what we're all about.
As President of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy, I am working so you can engage more clients. I am dedicating my time so that our profession is respected by our colleagues. I am reaching out via workshops and webinars so more talk-oriented professionals will become curious about what we do and join our training programs. I am here, present with all of you because I believe we make a positive impact on our world.
Over the past year, our membership drive has resulted in increased individual members and Institutional Members and Training Resource members on board. Our SALE continues to attract more individuals (still at 1/2 price)!
Our Research Committee Chair Denise Saint Arnault headed our most exciting project this year. With USABP backing, Denise is developing a series of research projects on the processes and efficacy of somatic psychotherapy, beginning with the establishment of a collaborative partnership with the California Institute for Integrative Studies (CIIS). The research question we will answer in these studies is: What is the impact of the unique contributions of Somatic Psychology on client health outcomes? The study will measure physical and psychological symptomology, body awareness, and key physical, social and psychological health indicators. Descriptions of our processes, our activities and achievements to date, and discussion of similar projects will be presented at the USABP conference in July, 2016.
I look forward to meeting you personally at our July conference in Providence Rhode Island. We look forward to making a big splash on the East coast as we celebrate our 20th year of existence near the original founding location by Boston.
See you soon!
Beth L. Haessig, PsyD Licensed Psychologist Certified Core Energetic Practitioner [email protected]
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Across the Pond
European Association for Body Psychotherapy
Jill van der Aa General Secretary/Vice President Lidy Evertsen EABP President
Our 15th European congress, ‘The Embodied Self in a dis- Embodied Society’, is being organized in collaboration with PESOPS, the representative of the EABP in Greece.
The EABP organizes body psychotherapy congresses every other year in different European countries. The aims of these congresses are: To develop our profession To meet with fellow body psychotherapists and with colleagues from adjoining fields in order to exchange information and enjoy each other’s company.
How do we recognize ourselves? By having an idea about who we are and also by experiencing who we are. And these two, idea and experience, cannot be separated. As our society is used to seeing the self as a concept, we call this inseparable unity the embodied self. Since the 16th century the perspective of science and western society has changed from observing phenomena as whole entities to looking at their smallest possible parts, to understanding the world as a machine. More recently we seem to have been evolving a more complex view of networks, an understanding of the world as an intricate web of phenomena influencing each other all the time. Nevertheless, centuries of Cartesian thinking (‘cogito, ergo sum’) have left western society with a legacy of splitting mind and body and thus dis-embodying the mind. This split is also to be found in the development of medicine and psychotherapy through the times.
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Body psychotherapy is based upon the We members of EABP are looking forward to opposite view, the view of unity of body and refining our expertise and exchanging mind. Over the last seventy years, body amongst ourselves new discoveries within psychotherapists have become the experts our clinical ways of working. We are also in clinical work based upon this unity. very much hoping to exchange with Recently this view has also received colleagues of related academic and clinical increasing attention from other fields. psychotherapy modalities. Moreover, researchers from various scientific disciplines now claim that the body is Body psychotherapists have great expertise mindful and the human self is embodied. on the clinical implications of the body-mind unity, just as our colleagues in other fields
have their own expertise in other important We body psychotherapists see a person as a issues. Together we can move to a higher complex whole of experiencing, thinking level of complexity that will allow us to and expressing him- or herself. That is why support our clients or patients in anchoring we aim to experience the self not only as a their felt selves in a secure experience of concept, but also very concretely as a their bodies. This may influence society and bodily experience, whose first language is support it to overcome the dis-embodiment the language of sensations and movement. created by Cartesian thinking as well as by This provides us with an access to areas the effects of trauma and poverty. that normally lie outside of conscious experience, like early childhood or traumatic events. By engaging the body we The congress will offer a variety of keynote gain the benefit of a large toolkit for presentations, round table talks, practical resourcing ourselves and our clients. workshops and discussion. In between you will be able to meet socially at drinks
parties, a gala evening and lunches. Dis-embodiment can serve well in times of traumatic events. It helps people to overcome unbearable pain and injury. Share knowledge and joy! Nevertheless, it is a survival strategy, and Come to our congress in Athens October after the event is over, we need to find the 13 - 16th, 2016. Or extend the experience way back to ordinary living. In this process with the post congress workshop in Sounio re-engagement with the body is essential. on Monday October 17th, 2016. And that is part of what body psychotherapists aim for in their clinical We are looking forward to meeting you. practice: the embodiment of the felt self. Lidy Evertsen President EABP
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From APPPAH’s President
Dear SPT Readers,
We welcome you to learn more about us as we declare March BirthPsychologyMonth.com. We are an organization of 35 years known as the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health - APPPAH. I want to thank Somatic Psychotherapy Today for providing this space as we celebrate the importance of good birth. We recognize the impact of Somatic studies and therapies on our work. We are thankful for your work. It has extended our focus to consider evidence gathered by scientists studying cellular biology, epigenetics, neurobiology and human development.
Foremost in our news, we are growing. We doubled membership in 2015 and we have a strong vision for the future of our organization. We announced in December strategic plans to expand service in three areas. APPPAH serves Practitioners, Parents, and Places of Birth.
We serve Practitioners. APPPAH’s Education Department offers a “first of its kind” Pre and Perinatal Educator (PPNE) 11 module online course. The course is certified for credit and teaches educators and practitioners to teach these principles to clients, parents and others. The program has grown to 180 students enrolled from 43 countries. Our new PPNE Somatics course covers preconception through the first year of life. We address the non- cognitive implicit memory that is registered in the tissues, nervous system, and parts of the brain. We cover Polyvagal Theory and help educators understand the somatic, felt- sense skills or embodiment of PPN education that will help you be a better, more informed, more confident professional.
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We serve Parents. APPPAH is building the next level of parenting education. TheConsciousBaby.com introduces an online parenting course in the fall of 2016. Our new logo reflects that we teach parents birth psychology, conscious conception, peaceful gestation, and skills to communicate with their aware and sentient baby. Our mission is for APPPAH to be at the heart of good birth.
We serve Places of Birth. During the past two years APPPAH has formed a Medical Advisory Board. Our Medical Director, Joel Evans, MD is working to bring education and healthy application of PPN principles into birth settings. APPPAH is certified for CME credits with several accreditation organizations including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. We offer their members education and support for improving birth options in hospitals. Our founder Dr. Thomas Verny said “Womb ecology becomes World ecology” as violence or peace is programmed into our earliest beginnings. We hope you will join us on this important journey. We are thankful for the role you play in bringing about a more peaceful humanity.
Joy and Blessings, Sandra Bardsley, President
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From the IBPJ Managing Editor
Jill van der Aa Jacqueline A. Carleton
The latest issue of the International Body Psychotherapy Journal (14.2) is available: http:// www.ibpj.org/archive.php
This is the last issue edited by Dr. Jacqueline A. Carleton, and after a long period of sponsorship and mentoring, three new editors are in place:
The Editor-in-Chief is Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar, PhD, who will work alongside two co-editors: Debbie Cotton, MA and Nancy Eichhorn, PhD, who are taking the role Dr. Carleton single- handedly held so beautifully for almost fifteen years.
In the editorial of the first USABPJ issue (2002), Jaqueline Carlton wrote: “It feels as if we have just given birth to the Journal following a long and sometimes difficult and complicated labor. Like all new parents, we look at it with a mixture of anxiety and pride and hope others will approve of it. Just as every new parent has hopes and dreams for their child as a shaper of the future and a reflection of the parents, we hold hopes and dreams for this journal. We hope that it will fulfill the task of both shaping and reflecting the field of body psychotherapy and its relationship to other related arts and sciences” (p.3)
The baby has grown; you have really done well Jacquie! Our team appreciates and applauds Dr Carleton for being a visionary, and more so for being willing and able to translate a vision into action, to give it body, breath, wings and to accompany the child as it soars. The journal is no longer a baby. It is now a being in its own right, and though Dr Carleton’s amazing work is visible in every breath and movement this journal makes, it has also acquired an autonomous quality, a life of its own.
We hope to keep you, Jacquie, proud of this young adult as it grows, and that you will continue to support us and accompany us with your wisdom, experience, and humanity.
Sincerely, Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar and Jill van der Aa
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His academic training includes a PhD in the application of hypnosis within
psychotherapy. His doctoral dissertation, Surrender to Flow, touched on the juxtaposition processes of surrender in
relational psychoanalysis, body psychotherapy and trance work. He is interested in the magic that takes place through meetings of bodies, minds and communities and is eager to explore these. Having gained substantial experience in working with trauma, dissociation, psychosexual issues, eating disorders and Asaf brings extensive clinical knowledge to relationship issues, he is also interested in the Journal as well as an impressive exploring gender and sexual identity issues publications vita including four books, and is mindful of cultural, power and class multiple book chapters and peer reviewed influences. Journal articles. His most recent books include Speaking of Bodies: Embodied His current organizational affiliations include: Therapeutic Dialogues (co-edited with Liron Registered with the United Kingdom Council for Lipkies and Noa Oster, Karnac, 2016) and Psychotherapy; Full member of the European his co-edited anthology, When Hurt Association of Body Psychotherapy ; Member of the Chiron Association for Body Psychotherapists ; Member Remains: Relational Perspectives on of the International Association for Relational Therapeutic Failure (Karnac, 2016). Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Accredited EMDR practitioner and Member of the UK & Ireland EMDR He created Integrative Mindbody Therapy Association (IMT) in 1997 and has since practiced, His current editorial positions include: written about and taught IMT, which is a Member of the editorial board of Self & Society; developing form of relational body Associate Editor of Body, Movement & Dance in psychotherapy that seeks to incorporate Psychotherapy; Member of the editorial board of Body working with trance. You can read more Psychotherapy publications; Member of the editorial about IMT here board of Psychotherapy and Politics International Journal Asaf founded two post graduate trainings, Psychosoma, a post graduate body You can learn more about Asaf by visiting his psychotherapy school at the Israeli Centre website www.imt.co.il. And he welcomes for Body-Mind Medicine (with Elad Hadad email correspondence: [email protected] and Shai Epstein), and a post graduate programme at Entelia institute with Silke Karnac Publishing just announced Ziehl. His clinical training includes Neo- Reichian body-psychotherapy (Deep a special SPT Magazine Subscriber Bodywork) with the Entelia institute, offer: Ericksonian Hypno-psychotherapy and Neuro -Linguistic Psychotherapy and Self-Relations 15% discount on all titles by Asaf Psychotherapy. He has further studied stress through December 2016, -management, and is an accredited paperback on their website. practitioner of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), working Not a subscriber? Sign up today with dissociation and psychosexual receive our special code. issues. Additionally, Asaf teaches and lectures in clinical and academic centres Remember it’s still Free to around the world. Subscribe!
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thoughts, ideas, opinions about what matters in the work we do and the impact on peoples' lives and further our field of study and practice.
Nancy is an Associate Editor and peer Nancy is the creator, editor, writer, layout reviewer for Body, Movement and Dance in designer and marketer for Somatic Psychotherapy: An International Journal for Psychotherapy Today, an international Theory, Research, and Practice. She has publication highlighting current research, published in Journals, magazines, and books theory, resources, and methodologies in the in the U.S.A. and abroad, including: When fields of somatic psychology, body Hurt Remains: Relational Perspectives on psychotherapy, body/mind practices and Therapeutic Failure (Karnac, 2016); About embodiment studies. She is a freelance Relational Body Psychotherapy; The Body in writer, editor, ghostwriter, investigative Relationship: Self-Other-Society; Body, journalist, writing mentor, and credentialed Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy; and educator. Her business name, Write to Be, the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal mirrors the importance of writing in her life. Psychology and Health. She has earned master’s degrees in clinical psychology, education (reading specialist), Her current organizational affiliations and nonfiction writing; her doctorate is in include: clinical psychology with an emphasis on The European Association for Body somatic psychology. She completed a Psychotherapy clinical trial investigating the use of Informed Touch to impact physiological The United States Association for Body sensations and resultant behavioral Psychotherapy responses in women living with chronic The Association for Pre and Perinatal bulimia. Psychology and Health
She founded SPT Magazine because she The American Psychological Association believes in the power of personal presence on the page in a community of acceptance. You can learn more about her work by visiting her websites: Nancy states, “What we do individually has a collective impact on our world--its health www.SomaticPsychotherapyToday.com and wellbeing and all living entities who dwell here. For me, voicing my truth is and paramount and finding the right venue to speak is just as critical.” www.NancyEichhorn.com
SPT Magazine is designed to offer writers She welcomes email correspondence: and readers the space to connect, to share [email protected]
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realms of safe touch, body-psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and just in being a better human. She now shares his thirst for aliveness and intensity and appreciates his love and his input into molding her work.
Her studies at Charles Stuart University Australia expanded her interest in neuroscience and biochemistry, so she can continue to keep abreast of the information about the mind in the body. She also trained with Silke Ziehl, and says that her no- Debbie holds a Masters of Integrative nonsense approach to love, life, relationship psychotherapy and counselling from The and therapy touched her deeply as a person. Minster Centre and Middlesex University, Debbie writes, “I am in gratitude for her London, a BS in complementary medicine wonderful work, Deep bodywork, and all from Charles Sturt University, Australia, an that she has personally given me with her Advanced Diploma of Naturopathy (ACNM) deep and honest connection. Deep (inclusive of a diploma of nutritional Bodywork is an amalgamation of Postural medicine and a diploma of western herbal Integration, Body Psychotherapy and neo- medicine), a diploma of Integrative- Reichian bodywork.” Mindbody-Therapy and a diploma of deep bodywork specializing in Postural Integration Her decision to increase her skills as a (Entelia Institute. London). She is also a mental health practitioner started her Reiki Master (with Madeleine Sewell, body educational process in Integrative awareness therapist) Psychotherapy with the Minster Centre. Her journey is still unfolding, and she is Her academic pursuits have helped her to constantly adding tools to her toolbox to understand her Self and others, and how enhance herself as a person and a our health and well-being are interlocked practitioner. Along with her private practice, with our physical, social, mental and she lectures for the College of Naturopathic environmental relationships. Personal Medicine (CNM) UK. Her students constantly disappointments associated with the medical teach her more about herself and her establishment and empathic care fueled her practice as she teaches them the tools of journey to learn how to bring more empathy the trade: “May they always push me to to support people with their wellness. keep deepening my love of naturopathy and my knowledge of the subject and tease me During her training in natural medicine, she enough to keep me humble.” learned more about her own body, the impact of the interactions with her Debbie is a full member of UKAHPP, the environment, and how she could become UKCP and an associate member of more responsible for aspects of her health. the Chiron Association of Body She also learned how to pass the Psychotherapists (CABP) information on to others. Her interest grew in the body-mind connection and what it You can learn more about Debbie by vising means to be human, which prompted her her website: http://www.debbiecotton.com/ study of body-awareness therapy with home Madeleine Sewell. She welcomes email correspondence: She as studied integrative-mindbody- [email protected] therapy with Asaf Rolef Ben-Shahar, who expanded her awareness and curiosity in the
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Join the Conversation
Communication is an essential part of all relationships, and the Internet affords opportunities to network with like-minded colleagues and participate in forums that challenge your thinking and ways of doing. Join the conversation and voice your thoughts on Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, and more.
The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology
Join SPT Magazine
as we celebrate the release of The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology edited by Gustl Marlock and Halko Weiss, with Courtenay Young and Michael Soth
We will gather at the David Brower Center 2150 Allston Way, Suite 100, Berkeley, California Friday, February 26, 2016 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
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Join six international authors
Ilse Schmidt-Zimmermann, Gustl Marlock, Christine Caldwell, Jacqueline Carleton, William F. Cornell, and Marti Glenn Hear six incredible presentations
Then join the conversation as they share their thoughts on in-depth treatment of core issues in embodied psychotherapy and discuss how the latest research in epigenetics, neuroscience, Polyvagal and attachment theories are making somatic psychology and body psychotherapy foundational for effective clinical practice. There will be ample discussion sessions during presenter breakouts; CEUs available.
This program is developed by Somatic Psychology Associates and co-sponsored by Somatic Psychology MA Programs at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco and JFK University, Pleasant Hill, CA.
To learn more and to sign up for the event, click here
The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy & Somatic Psychology is available at Amazon and other booksellers. Published by North Atlantic Books, SPT Magazine subscribers receive 10% off all e-books.
Be sure to check out our reviews and the author/editor reflections on page 20.
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Edited by
Gustl Marlock Halko Weiss
With
Courtenay Young Michael Soth
Reviewed by
Nancy Eichhorn
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There’s always this sense of anticipation when I read a book by editors and authors I personally know. My belly churns; there's an involuntarily pause before I exhale and my heart adds a beat to its rhythmic song; a resonance exists that translates from colleague to text. I hear their voice while reading as if we are together, in person, having an amicable chat.
When I heard that Halko, Courtenay and Michael were part of The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology, when I heard that many colleagues had contributed chapters, I immediately had to read it and share my thoughts with SPT Magazine’s readers.
When the box arrived, I thought someone All citations are referenced, APA format, and had sent me quite a heavy gift. When the when materials have been translated, as return address was from North Atlantic many chapters have, the translator is noted Books, I thought, oh, no, they must have as well. The chapters are not overwhelming sent me multiple copies. When I opened the in length (5 to 15 pages, plus extensive and box and saw one single book, well, I was at times exhaustive reference lists) so you amazed. This is a comprehensive textbook can sit down and read a chapter at the end spanning not only eras of body of a long work day without feeling psychotherapy but also modalities and overwhelmed; furthermore, the writing is schools of thought located throughout the such that it doesn’t feel like you are reading world. The book has twelve sections with 94 a class assignment but rather exploring chapters (read Table of Contents here). insights into our field of study and practice. There are eighty-two contributors—nearly The formality of APA in-text citations does every major living figure in body signal this is a traditional textbook meant to psychotherapy is present, plus some who be used as a standard selection for somatic have recently died. Many are established psychology university courses, for trainees in authors, founders of schools, lecturers. They body psychotherapy, and I would say as an are trainers and supervisors in universities essential read for most practicing and post graduate training institutions. psychotherapists regardless of their orientation or discipline. There is honestly no Gustl and Halko (with Michael for Section other book I know of that is this VI) wrote Section introductions that offer an comprehensive and as inclusive of the overview of each chapter and the content diversity of approaches and schools within contributors covered. As well, they offer body psychotherapy. This book is clearly further reading if one’s interest so desires.
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not meant to be read from cover to cover but rather to be read in sections with colleague discussion and/or classroom conversations guided by a qualified instructor.
The original textbook, entitled, Handbuch der Körperpsychotherapie, was commissioned in 2003 and published in German (Schattauer, 2006). The idea to translate the book into English and the ‘stories’ of how this Second Edition came about are discussed in-depth in the editor reflection pieces that follow this review. In short, this is not a simple translation of what came before. Some of the chapters, originally in German, French, Spanish, etc. have been translated into English, chapters originally written in English were updated and revised, and when authors were no longer available, new contributors were commissioned to write additional chapters. The entire Handbook is completely re-edited with many updates including recent According to Bessel van der Kolk, The references. Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology “constitutes a critical To be honest, I did not have time to read attempt to begin the creation of some all 950 pages; okay the Index of Names unified concepts and elements in a common goes from page 929 to page 938, and the language, issues essential for this field to Subject Index ends at page 950, so emerge from its prescientific past”. It is an technically speaking it ends on page 928. I important step, he writes, toward facilitating did read the Foreword by Bessel van der unification of the fragmentation that exists Kolk, the Introduction to the American- in our field—there are an incredible number English Edition by Michael Soth and of methods, with each differentiated by Courtenay Young, and the Preface: The Field language and approach. Each method, each of Body Psychotherapy by Gustl Marlock and school, each practitioner will gain when we Halko Weiss in full. I also read Section increase awareness of and appreciation of introductions and chapters that sparked an our commonalities and stop the trajectory of interest when I read the title. Thus, this tunnel vision, halt our sole focus to prove review is based on a sampling of the book, our way is the right way, that we are not a thorough and complete read. As well, separate and unique and therefore in because much energy is pulsating in the competition with one another for recognition environ—many are presenting and and client care. promoting this book—I will focus my short review on the overall intention—why this True, we need to clarify what is body book, now. work, what are body-oriented complementary therapies, and what is body
psychotherapy. Without a clear “There is no such thing as understanding of how these differ, the “proliferation of supposedly theory-free body a mind without a body” (pg. 21) techniques being applied pragmatically and sometimes successfully without any
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The editors structured the content according to “important general questions and essential focal areas, rather than according to particular schools, their founders, histories, proponents, or their specialties.”
awareness of the historical depth and clinical orientation toward systemic wholeness of breadth of the field of body our subjective experience where the psychic psychotherapy” (pg. 7) will continue to dimension of the human experience and the create confusion for outsiders—those not bodily dimensions of the lived experience intimately engaged in our field of study and are equally appreciated (pg. 11). practice—as well as those encompassed Bessel notes that a unifying concept within within the field of body and therapy. all therapeutic modalities is the fact that The editors acknowledge that body people need to have physical experiences psychotherapy itself, as a theoretically and that directly contradict or replace past clinically unified field, actually does not feelings of hopelessness, frustration and exist. In seems that our timeline includes terror in order to change. Four common different points of origination and different foundations of body psychotherapy are lineages of traditions; existing schools and noted on page 13. Citing current approaches are widely divergent, with neuroscience studies, Bessel writes that fiercely loyal followers. As each new method research shows “little connection between emerges on the timeline, the swath of my, various brain centers involved in me, mine continues to spread, leaving out understanding, planning and emotion. We us, we, community, and the power that simply are not capable of understanding our comes with unity. way out of our feelings—whether feelings of love, fear, deprivation or hate” (pg. xii). In One intention for this book was to order to heal, we must learn to pay closer orchestrate consolidation. In this light, the attention to our “internal life, to the flow of editors structured the content according to physical sensations, feelings, internal “important general questions and essential images and patterns of thought” (p. xiii). focal areas, rather than according to When we learn how to work with our felt particular schools, their founders, histories, sense, we can make enormous changes in proponents, or their specialties” (pg. 9). The how we feel and act. how of classification, the what must be involved to be called body psychotherapy is The concept of body psychotherapy as a discussed. Components include the unifying construct follows that when we integration of psyche, a focus on the learn and appreciate approaches/methods psychological experience, and the client- that emphasize and at times intensify our therapist relationship—at the bare awareness of and our engagement “with our minimum, the approach must orient lived, felt, embodied, here-and-now attention and awareness of both the client subjective experiences” (p.31) we can and the therapist toward the psychological decrease our polarization between the experience and “attend to the structures, verbal-reflective-cognition notion of mind processes and developments of subjective and an embodied, holistic understanding experience and how it translates into the that is still pervasive in our field, which is a person’s being, doing and relating to detriment to effective practice (pg.41). life” (pg.11). As well, there must be an
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The editors offer questions to highlight primary criteria for inclusion in the field of body psychotherapy: Does this school or approach make an important theoretical or technical contribution?
Is it competent and qualified to represent the larger field? Can the founders/therapists expand beyond their own protective container and show yes this process works and yes it impacts all therapists in all genre of mental health (should they choose to learn the process)? If this book can stimulate a far-reaching exchange, if it can stimulate dialogue that engenders mutual connections (and as necessary respectful collegial debates) as the editors intend, then we are well on our way. I agree with the editors that the time is now for we, as therapists immersed in our field of study and practice, to lend our efforts to validate the subject matter itself rather than struggle to prove ourselves, our platform, our school or strive to promote our practice, our book, our website. The more we support one another, the more body psychotherapy will reach out and touch the mental health field, and in turn, there will be enough time and space and energy for all to exist. Is this a must read? Yes. There is something for everyone. And while reading this book, if concepts trigger a response, a rise, a question, an energetic impulse, I invite you to reach out and connect with the editors and/or contributors and start conversations that can foster resolution and connection.
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The Handbook . . . Reflections By Halko Weiss
This book was composed by Gustl Marlock and myself to give a face to body psychotherapy as a whole. It is supposed to help mentally organize the scattered field and inform psychotherapists of all schools about its width and length, as well of its long history and its many methodologies. The idea is that this cannot be done by one author alone because nobody can correctly and fairly cover the contributions of so many diverse approaches. It is for this reason that the book contains the voices of 82 competent representatives of the field from many different countries, among them some of its most highly esteemed originators and teachers. They are meant to form the legs and arms, the trunk and the tail, the belly and the eyes of the now fully grown elephant named Body Psychotherapy.
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The idea for the first version came in 2001 when Gustl and I sat together, very frustrated, because once again we had become aware of both a psychoanalytic conference, and a CBT conference on the role of the body in psychotherapy where none of us body psychotherapists were invited. Instead they often presented the most out-dated, primitive, and often misunderstood concepts of working with the body, often without naming were it came from, and with the claim it was a totally new and sensational approach.
Of course we were also aware that our field is so diverse, so cut-up by schools and concepts, that there IS no-one who can speak for the whole field. We saw the field as not able to present itself as a unified approach to psychotherapy. And we complained that nobody had tried to write the book on the whole of it. That is when we also became aware the WE had also not done so, and we made the decision to put together a simple little book with some survive. But will our voice be heard? We articles within a year. Well, it lasted five want to try to help it. years and was a hell of an effort! Michel Heller’s book, Body Psychotherapy: Our hope is that body psychotherapy will be History, Concepts, and Methods is a seen as a valid contributor to modern wonderful example of how one man sees the psychotherapy, and accepted as a partner in field. We do not believe, however, that one discourse who has a number of exciting man can capture the diversity, know all the offers, innovations, and controversial ideas different ways and angles, in the way that to throw in the mix. In the long run we the people and schools described will feel believe that the body can NOT rightfully, that they are represented correctly. We ethically, and intellectually excluded from wanted the field itself to speak, and we tried the psychotherapy of the future. The to be as impartial as we could possibly be. mental/cognitive only approach will not
SPT Magazine offers our heartfelt thanks to W.W. Norton & Company for offering our subscribers 25% discount with free shipping on all mental health series books.
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Three thousand copies in Germany is not an aspect they are interested in without like 3,000 copies in English. The English reading the whole book. It is organized market may be 10 times as big as the around topics, not methods. German one. It is not only a fact that the Body psychotherapists can check out what population of the US is four times the size of representatives of other schools are thinking the German, but it includes countries like and doing. England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. Plus all the people in other So if you are considering what use it may countries who have a different language but have for you, I would think it is most likely whose professional population does read in that you will read a chapter here and there, English: Sweden, Holland, etc., even depending on what you are thinking about Germany! Our German publisher said to me, as a body psychotherapist at the moment. literally, “You are now one of our success You can look up stuff. You can find out authors.” Therefore, I disagree strongly that about schools and authors that you are 3,000 copies in German is only mildly curious about. You can use their references successful. to continue with the research of an issue. The intro chapters by Gustl and myself are The book was strongly supported by the meant to weave it all together so that we European Association for Body hope to give people orientation in the field. Psychotherapy, (EABP), as well as its German branch, the DGK, because it has political meaning to present body psychotherapy as a whole. My guess is that The book was strongly it will sell much better in the US than Michel’s book, not just because it is more supported by the inclusive, but also because many schools have their authors in it and will help European Association for promote it. Body Psychotherapy, It is not quite correct to say this book would (EABP), as well as its be an effort to be “up to date”. We have often asked the authors to NOT present their German branch, the DGK, latest ideas, but to speak to what body psychotherapy has to offer in general, because it has political including the historic perspective. And to speak for ALL of us. meaning to present body
The book as served as a seminal book in psychotherapy as a whole. Germany. Students at universities pick it up to read, to refer to when they consider the use of the body in psychotherapy. Since I A Labor of Love feel that the body MUST be in included in all forms of contemporary psychotherapy we When it comes to Gustl’s and my personal hope to give a taste and a choice to those experience I must say it was a work of love. who are waking up to the question. Although you can make a little bit of money with books in Germany, it will cover our A professional who has no or little costs in time, travel, etc., not even in the experience with working with the body can one-digit percentages. It is a very grinding get inspirations and see what elements of experience to, for example, alienate authors the field they might be interested in. who feel we do them injustice when they Students can pick up the book and look for cannot write about a pet project, or deliver
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30 pages instead of eight, or have a responsible not only for the text itself, but problem writing coherently and intelligently. also for the kind of writing, staying with the Some of the articles have gone through topic, the size each topic gets within the more than 10 revisions, with both editors larger whole, so that there is an appropriate (and later, in the English version, balance, etc. That is not easy to accept for sometimes three editors) going through a some authors. All in all, it was a text, commenting, changing and then tremendous effort that helped cut down our communicating about it, finding a common income, get stress at home, lose sleep, etc. perspective and then work with the author. But it also gave us great contacts with our And then all the delays and forgotten peers all over the world. Personally, I deadlines!!!!! Some of the authors were learned more than in the years at college. great: reliable, working well with feedback, We loved it. cooperative, easy, friendly. Among them some of the greats, like Alexander Lowen. Halko Weiss, Ph.D. Others had great personal investments and [email protected] were emotionally draining and time- consuming to work with. As editors we were
The Handbook . . . A Personal Account By Courtenay Young
I was approached by Halko & Gustl in the late summer of 2009, saying they wanted someone to help them with the English language version of the German: Handbuch der Körperpsychotherapie (which had been published by Schattauer in 2006). I had been very enthusiastic about a potential English-language version (not being able to read German) and so I agreed. Little did I know how much this task would 'absorb' itself into my life.
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I was, of course, very familiar with the "field" of body psychotherapy, and twenty years earlier had helped David Boadella write and publish his book: Lifestreams: An Introduction to Biosynthesis. I had also already had various articles published in professional journals; my own (1st) book, Help Yourself Towards Mental Health (Karnac, 2010) was due to come out in the next year, and I was already editing journal articles for the International Journal of Psychotherapy, and the Taylor & Francis journal, Body, Movement & Dance in Psychotherapy. All this was as a side- line to my clinical practice as a counsellor and psychotherapist within the NHS in Scotland and my private clinical practice in Edinburgh & the Scottish Borders. These were my only qualifications: the task was fairly daunting and I was very touched and honored to be asked.
We worked out a "letter of understanding" in September 2009 and then I started in on the task. About half of the original chapters were written in English; the other half originally in German. So, for the new English- language volume, we had to translate all the (originally) German articles into English, and we also had to 'up-date' all the original English articles (already written about 6 years previously); and then create a degree of homogeneity between the two types of articles. We also looked at some of the original articles that didn't seem to work so well and decided to change the balance to suit a new English-American edition. We thus decided to commission a number of new chapters (some to replace some of the old chapters; and some to cover some new topics). number of different translators, with different degrees of accuracy, punctuation The cost of translating the German articles and syntax. The original articles had all been into English was carried by the two main quite well-edited for content, but not Editors, Halko Weiss and Gustl Marlock, with necessarily for style, syntax or any degree some considerable help from EABP and the of homogeneity. I therefore saw something DGK, I believe. I just got the results from a of this as my role for this new volume.
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Eventually, holding it in my hands, weighing slightly more than a new-born baby, I had a mild epiphany: a sense of creation and achievement.
Some of the chapter’s authors complained texts into readable English. So, Michael Soth about any corrections to their style, or about was invited as a fourth editor, as he is very any suggestions for additional input, fluent in both languages. He became a references, etc. Most of the authors were useful "bridge", as well as contributing a very grateful. I (we) had to bear the rough couple of the 'new' chapters, nicely filling in with the smooth. some of the 'holes' in the now much-wider matrix. There were a few other problems with "unlocking" the PDF of the German book, so One person, whom we also wanted to be that I could copy the references; there were represented in the book, felt a little daunted some issues about chapters originally by what we wanted so 'invited in' a couple written by people (colleagues) who had more authors for that particular topic. Thus, sadly since passed away; some of the the whole ‘mix’ got richer. I remembered (original) German chapters had been meeting a couple of other potential new translated and some hadn't, so the authors at some of the various (EABP, ISC & continuity was incomplete. I had to 'invent' USABP) international conferences I have a massive spreadsheet with all the attended. I checked this out with Halko & information, e-mail addresses, dates of Gustl and we invited a couple of new contacts and updates on it; later adding chapters from them. Another colleague (who word-count, and chapter revisions, etc. We I had trained with many years ago) had also had to ‘decide’ upon English or written a couple of good articles on one American spellings and conventions, and topic, which hadn't been very well covered various other details. previously, and so was invited to write a chapter there. Another person, well-known I will skip somewhat lightly over the next to Halko & Gustl, was invited to cover a three years of slogging away, and also of topic not well covered in the German stopping slogging, and not being able to edition, and 'suggested' a couple of his/her bear to start up again for several months: colleagues, who stepped in and did a great much depended on how people responded job. We were getting close to a "full house". to my overtures and also to the style of (I hope you notice how diplomatic and editing. Luckily, at this point, we didn't have circumspect I am being: no names; no a contract with a publisher and therefore complications!) there was no specific deadline. We managed to meet at some of the EABP and other B-P As the work progressed, we had also started conferences and had a few Skype to look at potential publishers. There were “conference calls” so as to keep in touch. several possibilities in the UK and in the USA. We also considered self-publishing By this time, we had also noted some briefly, but decided against this, as we complications with the various translations wanted the distribution facilities of and (let and the re-shaping of some of the German us own it) the kudos of being with a
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commercial publisher. We approached one delivered with a few delays from our side (very major) publisher who had published and some complications with USA tax some body psychotherapy material before, "stuff". But, by about September 2013, we and they said essentially, "Yes, but ... " - were all 'signed up' and now with a they were enthusiastic, and already had a deadline. OMG! Back to work! series of "Handbooks", but these were all around the 150,000 word limit and we were My 2014 "summer holiday" in a rural retreat already at more than twice that. So, we in France (without e-mails and with very briefly considered splitting it into two little money) was spent "finalizing" about 12 volumes but eventually decided to look -15 chapters then driving to the next village elsewhere. (where there was a cafe with internet) and up-loading what I had done into something In contacting other publishers, I had that we had discovered that made a world discovered a "format" of information that of difference in our communications: publishers seemed to want and I believe Dropbox! With all the various versions of this helped immensely: publishers more than 90 chapters being passed do not want to see the actual book or the around, this internet facility was like having final text. At most, they want to see only a magic filing cabinet. Some of the one or two chapters. But what they really chapters / sections were already too big to want to know is: what it is about; who is it be sent as an internet e-mail attachment. by; what have these people published How did we determine which was the latest before; who is it for; what is the market like version; and how did we all have access; and how big is it; what other (similar) books and how did the publisher get all the are out there; how can we help to sell material that we wanted to communicate? it; etc. It all felt a little bit like, how can Dropbox! they make money out of us, but after all, that is (literally) their 'business'. In fairness, I have to mention here that I live in by this time, we were also hoping to make a Scotland, and travel quite a lot, mainly in little money ourselves. Europe; Gustl lives in Germany (but was also travelling extensively, and was also Having re-jigged our presentation, we then caring for an aged relative); Michael lives in approached North Atlantic Books, who were Oxford, with a busy teaching and client definitely next on our list of possible schedule, and so he also travels often; and publishers, and who had also recently Halko is a veritable jet-setter, teaching published some (more) body psychotherapy Hakomi in Australia & New Zealand, the books, and they said "Yes! Please!" I have United States, Germany, Spain, and heaven to say there was (not only) a great sense of -knows-where-else. Many of his relief, and then an increasingly fantastic and communications were from stopovers in very supportive relationship thereafter. international airports. Thank heavens for WiFi! In addition, nearly all our authors There were a few minor haggles with lived mainly in UK, Germany, USA and getting the contract fully signed, sealed and Australia. This whole task would have been
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almost impossible with paper manuscripts Besides the authors and other editors, I also and traditional postal services. However, asked a couple of other people (psychology there are also a few downsides to electronic student interns supplied by Jacqueline communication: e-mail addresses Carleton) to read through sections of the sometimes get changed without notice; whole text again and give a relative computers go down; some software – outsider’s view. especially concerning graphics – is just not good enough; and address books sometimes The publication date was now set for get hacked. 8th December 2015. All this came together into a final set of “proofs”. The name index Eventually, sometime in September 2014, and subject index was done (I suspect semi- everything was in. This was a couple of automatically), and in just a few weeks the months later than intended. Our deadline book had been printed and advance copies had been July 2014, for publication in were now available. And six years had February 2015. Now it was for a later passed just like that! publication date. We then decided what we liked best from various cover formats. Whether we succeeded, or whether we The next stage was the copy-editing failed, or probably something in between process. Everything that we had sent to NAB time and sales will tell. The original German (in MS Word .doc format) had to be edition sold more than 3,000 copies and reformatted according to their “in-house there is now a 2nd German edition in styles” and checked over by their copy progress, more closely based on this English editor; and then had to be re-checked by -American edition. Eventually, holding it in me! So, we are talking reading all the half-a my hands, weighing slightly more than a million words all over again. new-born baby, I had a mild epiphany: a sense of creation and achievement. There were some minor difficulties agreeing referencing formats, and textual styles and fonts, etc., and I got a little frustrated when some of the changes I was making seemed to be being ignored, but eventually everything got sorted out reasonably well. Whether we Then we moved to the “proof copy” stage, closer to what it would look like eventually. Up to this point, we had a “basically agreed” succeeded, or text, with all the various authors, dating from about a year earlier, which had then whether we failed, been submitted to the publishers. However, with some of the later editing and with different people working on the text, it was or probably now time to do a final re-check with all the authors. something in
Many were very happy, ecstatic even; though, inevitably, some of them wanted between, time and some additional changes; and some authors didn’t reply in the short time that was now sales will tell. available; and some . . . but there I go again – if people don’t read their e-mails . . . aaarrrggghhh!
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On the Significance of "Bodymind" Visioning for the Profession and for the Planet
By Barnaby B. Barratt, PhD, DHS
Having accepted her kind invitation to offer the Thursday Keynote at the 2016 USABP Conference, I pondered how to respond to President Beth Haessig's request that I say something that will help bodymind psychotherapists and somatic healers to comprehend, more broadly and more deeply than some do, the crucial importance of their work, and the visions that it might represent. That is, going beyond the healing offered to individuals and small groups who benefit from our professional practices, what is the more general, historical and cultural significance of the "bodymind" movement? Although I have not yet planned my talk, I am considering a free‑wheeling exploration of the ways in which healing must address—directly or indirectly, somatically and spiritually—the distinctive human capacity for hatred.
In Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Menenius It is the hungry wolf that loves the lamb. Agrippa asks, Who(m) does the wolf love? As Stanley Cavell (1983) and others have In the somewhat confusing dialogue with discussed, this implies an intriguing, if not Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus that disturbing, thesis on "love", but surely it is ensues, the beloved is clearly identified. also indirectly a riff on hatred.
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The wolf certainly needs what the lamb suggested in his 1823 essay, a specifically, possesses—nourishment. But arguably and perhaps exclusively, human "love" in the human sense might mean characteristic. So when, to give just one more than this sort of anaclisis, in which we example, pompous politicians condemn "love" only that which we need to conquer. terrorist acts as "inhuman," one might aptly Here, Shakespeare dallies with ambiguities. contradict, borrowing from Friedrich Menenius proceeds to equate the wolf with Nietzsche, "no, human, all too human." the "hungry plebians" who would "devour" the noble (and well fed) Coriolanus. There are many roots to this human However, starving peoples, whom Sicinius proclivity, which flourish despite the refers to as "beasts," rarely "love" those of crystalline awareness of so many of this their fellow humans who feed extravagantly species that our spiritual calling is to live life off their labors. In such social in Love, not "love" characterized by arrangements, hatred is prevalent. I possessiveness and the envious greediness witness this tragic dimension daily. we direct toward the objects of our attachment, people and things to whom we are attached, but Love as the mysterious I live in Africa, where terrified and envious energy of the universe, the hierurgical hatred against the plundering of the rich, impulse that pervades all that is and is not. against the visible extravagances of North The languages of different cultural traditions Atlantic peoples, against men who rape, and diverge, but universal wisdom converges— against adults who abuse the young and the as Tenzin Gyatso, our present Dalai Lama, weak, is on the surface of everyday life— never tires of insisting— on the supreme unsanitized by Hollywood pablum and the spirit of compassion, that is, Love. What unctuous platitudes of commercialized keeps us out of Love? This is not the place media. In this regard, the writings of Franz for an exegesis on the origins and the Fanon have not lost their relevance. Yet, if perpetuation of hatred; I am convinced that "love" in the human sense does not seem one profound root of our capacity to take the apt term for that which drives the pleasure in hating the "other" (and, on voracious wolf, neither surely does "hatred." occasion, in hating our "self") is our Arguably, animals may eat each other, but alienation from the immediate sensuality of do not hate each other. Hatred would seem our experiential embodiment and thence to be one of our species' signatures. Taking from the very source of our spiritual being. pleasure in hating is, as William Hazlitt
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Although I have lived and traveled in India, Tibet, China, Japan, Thailand and Laos, I write as a European who resided for over thirty years in the USA and who has now made South Africa his home. From these experiences, it is clear to me that, as I wrote in Liberating Eros, such alienation from our sensuality is not only especially endemic in the hegemonic cultures of the North Atlantic nexus — that geopolitical space that Enrique Dussel describes as the global "center"— but in the Judeo‑Christian‑Islamic tradition, it is often rationalized as a key to the achievement of the very inspiration of Love, freedom and joy, from which it actually severs us. Moreover, it is alleged to be crucial to socioeconomic "progress" (to survive and thrive in the world of contemporary capitalism forecloses the possibility of a balanced life in which we listen to the voices of the natural world, including those of our embodied experience). "rationality" inform us that there is no alternative to this system that the dream of In the contemporary crises faced by socialism, for example, has failed. But there humanity, it seems that ratiocination has is no choice but to choose something other revealed its limits (one might say that than the current world order. Despite this rationality has almost exhausted itself, if insight, we continue to avoid facing the that were not to risk suggesting that we reality that there has to be a different vision must court irrationality). This is surely a of humanity from that of globalized culmination of the modern era that Sigmund capitalism (which, by its very structure, Freud might have and perhaps did causes such horrendous disparities in anticipate. Pure rationality is neither material wellbeing), from that of the attainable nor desirable but leads to burgeoning of evangelical fundamentalisms delusions of mastery, in which the voice of and religious intolerance, from that which that which is "arational" or non‑rational impels our species toward planetary within us is repressed. It is surely evident destruction, and from that which foments that, as Georg Hegel articulated in his 1807 the oppression of women, children and account of the master/slave dialectic, the minorities. There has to be a vision that goal of mastery, epitomized in the cultural prioritizes the ethicality of otherness over attributes fostered by a globalized those precepts that license the domination, socioeconomic system based on conquest and possession of whatever is accumulation and expansionism (as well as other and otherwise. the liberty of those who have to profit from the surplus labors of those who have not) is Central to such a vision is dissent from terminal and ultimately suicidal. Today, the prevailing North Atlantic culture that, genocide and ecocide are all around us. We despite evidence to the contrary, treats the are, in Slavoj Žižek's catchphrase, "living in body as other than the mind— a the end times." Yet the norms of fundamental act of objectification and
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Our embodiment becomes not the vehicle of our spiritual being, but a "thing" to be dominated and commodified.
alienation. Such a culture reifies our lively momentum accrued in the consulting embodied experience denying, suppressing rooms of somatic psychologists and and repressing its "voice." Our embodiment bodymind healers—that radically different becomes not the vehicle of our spiritual sorts of human community can evolve. being, but a "thing" to be dominated and These might even be communities in which commodified. Thus, the media offers us the human relations were not grounded on the "body" as an instrument in the marketplace arrangements of domination and of fashion and athletics; medicine offers us exploitation but communities in which the "body" as a complex of anatomical dreams may be shared— communities structures and physiological functions that grounded on something very like Love. just happens to operate in a pre‑cadaveric state; and socioeconomics offers us the Dr. Barratt plays and works as a psychoanalyst, "body" as a unit of labor, a cog in the sexuality consultant, somatic psychologist and machinations of the military‑industrial tantric facilitator in Johannesburg, South Africa. complex (see my 2010 text). A Past President of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, Central to such dissent is the cultivation he is currently Senior Research Fellow at the of radical processes of listening to all that Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, appears profoundly other and otherwise University of Witwatersrand. He may be than the circuitous complacency that contacted at [email protected] typically characterizes human References self‑consciousness— the apparent Barratt, B. B. (2009). Liberating eros. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris/ imperative for our egotism to affirm itself. Random House. The possibility of listening to the voices of ----- (2010). The emergence of somatic psychology and bodymind therapy. Basingstoke, UK: otherness— the stifled voices of minorities, Palgrave Macmillan. the oppressed voices of those who are ----- (2013). What is psychoanalysis? 100 years after Freud's 'Secret Committee.' London, UK: forcibly impoverished and disenfranchised, Routledge. the condemned voices of the natural ----- (forthcoming in 2016). Radical psychoanalysis: An essay on free‑associative praxis. world— can thus be seen as essential to our London, UK: Routledge. Bollas, C. (2011). The Christopher Bollas reader. London, UK: human future. This is perhaps a Levinasian, Routledge. feminist, deconstructive, and ultimately Cavell, S. (1983). Who does the wolf love?" Reading Coriolanus. Representations (3), 1‑20. "leftist" vision. In so many ways, it begins doi: 10.2307/3043784. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/ with our listening to that which is within, stable/3043784. Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso). The Dalai Lama's book of wisdom. but which we so often treat as other—the London, UK: Thorsons. enigmatic and erotic messages of our Dussel, E. (1977). Philosophy of liberation (translated by A. Martinez & C. Morkovsky). Eugene, embodied experience. This is like listening Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1985. Fanon, F. (1952). Black skin, white masks (translated by C. L. to the repressed unconscious that is Markmann). New York, NY: unrepresentable but vivaciously active Grove Press, 1967. ----- (1961). The wretched of the earth (translated by C. within us, or what Christopher Bollas calls Farrington). New York, NY: Grove Weidenfeld, 1963. the "unthought known," which we so often Hazlitt, W. (1823). On the pleasure of hating. Boston, MA: Digireads, 2010. keep stifled within us (see my 2013 and Hegel, G. W. F. (1807). Hegel's phenomenology of spirit (translated forthcoming texts). by A. V. Miller). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Nietsche, F. (1888). Human, all too human: A book for free spirits (translated by R. J. Hollingdale). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Surely it is only from such listening Žižek, S. (2010). Living in the end times. London, UK: Verso. practices— from the very insights and the
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Sexuality, Spirituality and the Body
An Interview with Joan Borysenko, PhD
By Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
To Begin: A Personal Story on Spontaneous Remission
“When I was 10 years old, I experienced spontaneous remission from a psychotic episode and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) through a spiritual experience,” Joan said as she revealed both an intimate snapshot of a vulnerable time in her life and insight into her scientific and clinical fascination with and exploration of spirituality, sexuality, psychology, nutrition, and more the past 40 years.
“I had seen this frightening movie with my mom. There were jungle scenes, head hunters with poison darts, scorpions, things that would scare a young child. I dreamt scary images; the movie traumatized me. One week later I started to hallucinate. I saw head hunters, feared they were going to break into the house. I developed OCD to manage, control, and make sense of the hallucinations. I believed that if I did the right rituals I would keep the head hunters from manifesting and killing my family.”
“I started with handwashing then developed other rituals. Before I spoke, I had to organize all my words into a mental list, which slowed my speech. When I read a book, I had to read it upside down, which meant I read upside down and backwards. And, I had to read everything three times. If I was disturbed while reading I would be in terror—absolutely, unbelievably, I can’t tell you how terrified I was. I couldn’t sleep or I would dream.”
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“One day, several months later, I thought, maybe if I prayed (now prayer was not in my family background). It was an inexplicable experience. The fear dissipated, and I felt a sense of peace. Fear and peace are different body experiences. You can taste terror, smell it, feel its waves of energy, its panic flushing, tensing. And when it suddenly stops and is replaced with a deep sense of peace and safety, a sense of something larger than yourself, it’s an opening of the mind/body state of being. I felt inspiration beyond anything my mind could dream up.”
“I knew I could heal from this mental illness. I knew how to do it. During this state of peace, this poem came to me about divine light and being watched over in the universe. I realized that if I thought of the poem I could bring the peaceful state back. When I was scared by images of the head hunters, I said the poem and went back to the peaceful state. I knew I could call back that deep sense of peace. If I did the rituals, I would stay stuck there. The prayer state needed to come to the ritual and I needed to say the poem. In three to four days the nightmares disappeared. The head hunters went away.”
“As a scientist and a psychologist, I believe in spontaneous remission.”
Spontaneous remission is not as rare as “Somehow, they entered an ultimate people may think (Jessy, 2011). It has been reality,” Joan said. “Maybe it’s like a associated with the placebo effect—if you physicist who studies string theory, who believe it will work, it will. According to believes in parallel universes—there’s a shift Christina Sarich (2014) the Institute of in parallel realties where the illness never Noetic Sciences has documented over 3,500 existed. Whatever the explanation, the verifiable cases of diseases, often life person went into a somatic state. They had threatening, that went away on their own a felt sense of peace, and were able to accord. Joan explained that research has reproduce it, like the place of peace I defined three commonalities that exist in experienced when I was 10 years old. This cases of spontaneous remission regardless personal experience guided me as a of the precipitating event, be it a scientist, as someone interested in the psychological or physical illness (cancer, spirituality of healing.” heart disease, diabetes), three things were in place: As a spiritual mentor, Joan works with students to impart the wisdom of feeling The person believed spontaneous states: they are “all sensations in the body remission/regression was possible and if you stay with the sensation you will discover it is impermanent—underneath the The person believed it was possible for experience of fear, you go through a him/her to personally experience doorway that leads to wisdom, insight, spontaneous remission healing,” she said.
The spontaneous remission was Continued on page 44 grounded in some sort of spiritual experience
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Life Force Energy: One Pathway In Muslim—something larger than the individual mind occurs. They are all talking While Western medicine has yet to about the same thing: this immediate sense embrace concepts such as life force energy, of recognition.” other cultures have for centuries, including Chi energy or Ki (as in Reiki) (Chinese/ Interspirituality Japanese healing), and Shakti, which means life force energy in the Eastern Hindu “It is important to distinguish religion tradition. The only way people in the from spirituality,” Joan wrote in her keynote Western states think about life force energy address overview. “While they may overlap, deals with whether sexual energy is it’s entirely possible to be spiritual without growing. Yet, life force energy is related to being religious and vice versa.” all intelligent energies. Joan said that our understanding of this magnificent energy “Spirituality,” she wrote, “is a unfolded via the study of epigenetics. As commitment to a life of depth and well, her fascination with trauma and compassion that connects each of us to a trauma treatment lead her to explore how larger whole. It is predicated on the the mind was involved and what allowed development of a contemplative life in the resiliency. She asked, “How can we, as classic sense of contemplation: an open and therapists, support our clients so their curious examination of experience as it traumatic images are integrated into the unfolds, moment-by-moment. This is also body so they no longer bring forth negative called Presence, and it is the basis of an emotional effects?” awakened life based on guidance from the Source, in service to the highest good.” “The body is the way in,” she said, sharing the answer she discovered after years of research. “Life force energy shows up as a spectrum of emotions. To work with life force energy you have to be in the moment. This seems to be the way to work with trauma and resilience. It’s less top down intellect, and more bottom up body-to-mind, how changes in the body show up in the mind, in our thought processes.”
“Working with clients for years, I frequently see people who are traumatized have a moment of transcendence—they leave their body in trauma and enter a different reality, akin to a mystical experience.”
“The spiritual realm is beyond religion,” she said. “No matter what door you go through, if you talk to a mystic from any religion—Jew, Christian,
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“Our personal spiritual development connection. must ultimately serve others for it to be an authentic unfolding of the heart of spirit in “In psychiatry and psychology, positive action.” emotions are thrown out,” Vaillant shared during an interview with Jim Fleming “While different faiths developed through (Wisconsin Public Radio, retrieved from specific prisms of culture and contexts in http://www.ttbook.org/book/transcript/ space and time, there are universal spiritual transcript-george-vaillant-spiritual- principles which are foundational to all of evolution). “Take a look at a 21st century them. Interspirituality is the common classic textbook of psychiatry. There are ground, where all of the wisdom traditions hundreds of lines on negative emotions such meet. Interspirituality is committed to as hate, terrorism, sin, and guilt, and finding the spirituality both within and thousands on depression and fear. Yet there beyond religion. What ties us together is a are only five lines on hope, one on joy and shared desire to connect with the Ground of none on compassion and forgiveness.” Being in a way that fully respects our differences. The challenge is to embody “Our whole concept of psychotherapy what is most true and real for us without might change if clinicians set about seeking to convince or convert others.” enhancing positive emotions rather than focusing only on negative emotions,” “Our intention is to delve deeply into the Vaillant said. perennial interspiritual philosophy of guidance and discernment so that we may become more fully present and capable of clear, compassionate action in the world.”
“Interspirituality,” she explained during our interview, “is beyond dogma, beyond individual belief. It comes together in a place more grounded in us, in sensation and direct experience.”
“Awe,” she added, “is an intensely spiritual state.” She mentioned George Vaillant (2008), a psychoanalyst and research psychiatrist at Harvard University, who wrote an article on spirituality in which he discusses spirituality not as doctrine nor as dogma but as a constellation of positive Joan agreed saying, “Our psychotherapy emotions: awe, compassion, love would absolutely revolutionize if we focused (attachment), hope, trust (faith), more guidance to help people experience forgiveness, joy, gratitude (all of which are positive emotions rather than stay stuck in hard wired in human beings as well as all negative.” Then she added with a heartfelt mammals). laugh, “It beats the pants off feeling anxious, depressed and furious.” According to Vaillant, positive emotions evoke our thought-action tendencies, the She noted that we live in a reality of patterns that lead to behavior. Vaillant duality: there’s light and dark, good and argued that spirituality is not about ideas, bad, right and wrong, laughter and tears. “If sayings, sacred texts or theology; rather, we can develop enough spaciousness to host spirituality is all about emotion and social all these dualities, all these feelings that
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to the field as well as to individual emotions, Borysenko earned her doctorate in Medical Sciences then we can switch our attention from from the Harvard Medical School, where she completed post-doctoral training in cancer cell biology. Her first thoughts floating down the river of faculty position was at the Tufts University College of consciousness to the river itself (citing Medicine in Boston. But after the death of her father Father Thomas Keating’s metaphor and his from cancer, she became more interested in the work with Centering Prayer. person with the illness than in the disease itself, and returned to Harvard Medical School to complete a second postdoctoral fellowship, this time in the new “When I speak (or other speakers) to groups field of behavioral medicine. Under the tutelage of there is always a felt sense that comes over Herbert Benson, M.D., who first identified the the room. You can feel the shift in the room, relaxation response and brought meditation into when we have all stepped into the river. medicine, she was awarded a Medical Foundation Fellowship and completed her third post-doctoral Ideas are not important. There is some fellowship in psychoneuroimmunology. In the early opening, some feeling transmitted that 1980’s Dr. Borysenko co-founded a Mind/Body clinic brings people beyond the mind into the great with Dr. Benson and Dr. Ilan Kutz, became licensed as heart that we are all a part of. It’s not an a psychologist, and was appointed instructor in intellectual sense and once it is felt and medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Her years of clinical experience and research culminated in the pointed out, you know that place as home. It 1987 publication of the New York Times best seller, is the greatest gift.” Minding the Body, Mending the Mind, which sold over 400,000 copies. The 20th anniversary edition, newly To sense this “shift in the room” yourself, be revised, was published in 2007. Author or co-author of 13 other books and numerous audio and video sure to attend Joan’s keynote address on programs, including the Public Television special Inner Friday, July 22, 2016 at 8:30 am. Peace for Busy People, she is the Founding Partner of Mind/Body Health Sciences, LLC located in Santa Fe, Joan Borysekno, a distinguished pioneer in integrative NM. Dr. Borysenko’s warmth and credibility—plus her medicine, is a world-renowned expert in the mind/ lively sense of humor—create a compelling presence. body connection. Her work has been foundational in an One of the most popular and sought after speakers in international health-care revolution that recognizes the the field of health, healing, and spirituality, her role of meaning, and the spiritual dimensions of life, as engaging and well researched presentations are an integral part of health and healing. After graduating perfect both for professionals and for the general magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in 1967, Dr. public.
Joan “cuts through the thicket of confusing—and often downright wrong—advice on nutrition and gives you easy-to-digest, bite-sized servings of real scientific information so you can discover which foods your body needs to heal and thrive.”
As a psychologist and cell biologist, she offers trustworthy advice “to psych out your inner saboteur, enabling you to make the changes you’ve been dreaming of. And as a busy woman who loves good food, she’ll teach you how to make simple, scrumptious, satisfying meals that you and your family will love whether you are omnivores, vegans, or vegetarians” (review retrieved from: http:// www.amazon.com/The-PlantPlus-Diet-Solution-Personalized/ dp/1401941486) You can read a book excerpt here
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Gender Based Changes to Manage Stress: How Behavior and Nutrition Play a Part in our Relationships
An Interview with John Gray, PhD By Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
I first ‘met’ John Gray in the mid-1990s on the pages of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, his New York Times #1 Best-Selling Relationship book. When I heard he was a keynote speaker at the USABP Fall 2016 conference on Sexuality, Spirituality and the Body, I flashed back to a scene with my first husband:
It was 1995. We were idling just outside of Loon Mountain in Northern New Hampshire, waiting to see a Crosby, Stills, and Nash (a 1960s folk rock group). Stuck in a snarl of traffic, we decided to listen to a cassette tape our counselor had recommended: Mars and Venus in the Bedroom: A Guide to Lasting Romance and Passion. Perhaps the volume was a bit loud but it was difficult to hear John talk above the chaos of cars and people eager to park for the concert. We had the windows down and the sunroof open. It was a humid summer New England day with thunderstorms predicted late afternoon; the pressure felt heavy. I was immersed; this man spoke a language that resonated with me. All the while I noted skepticism on my former husband’s face. He was not engaged, at all. A biker pulled up beside us decked in black Harley leathers with his lady laid back against the rear bar. She took a long drag off her cigarette with a nonchalant attitude of “I’m cool and don’t care” reflected in her posture and facial expression. Then the tape, well John’s words were loud and explicit and while I can’t remember the exact wording or sounds I can easily recall the embarrassment my husband felt. He ejected that tape almost instantaneously as the bikers transitioned from a state of cool deflection to rapt attention to finger pointing laughter. He collapsed in the seat as low as humanly possible.
I’ve held onto those cassette tapes and books ever since.
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When I arranged to interview John depend on more than strong connections, I thought I knew all about him, based of understanding our differences and good course on reading two books he wrote over communication skills—they are also 20 years ago. I had no idea who he was, influenced by our physical health: “If you what he has since accomplished, and where aren’t healthy in your mind and body, it’s his practice was focused today. Results hard to be healthy outside your mind and from my preliminary research were body. So if you feel sick, tired, exhausted, astounding. John has published over 20 stressed and generally unhappy, this will books including a slew of Mars and Venus cause your relationships to feel the same topics such as: Mars and Venus Starting way” (www.marsvenus.com). Over: A Practical Guide for Finding Love Again After a Painful Breakup, Divorce, or Body to Mind the Loss of A loved One; Mars and Venus His enlightenment began as a child: Together Forever: Relationship Skills for practicing yoga from age 3 on; excelling in Lasting Love; Mars and Venus Collide: his karate practice at age 12 that guided Improving Relationships by Understanding him into a deeper understanding of How Men and Women Cope Differently with discipline, meditation, and ‘the best Stress; Mars and Venus on a Date: A Guide defense’—avoiding conflicts in the first to Navigating the 5 Stages of Dating To place. While friends attended Woodstock, create a Loving and Lasting Relationship; John immersed himself in Transcendental and Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice: Hormonal Meditation (TM). He spent nine years with Balance-The Key to Life, Love and Energy. the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, becoming his He and his daughter, Lauren, have a personal assistant and leading training website: Mars Venus, Down to earth advice workshops (John taught over 15,000 TM on life and love, where he provides the teachers in over 300 TM centers male perspective and she the female. And worldwide). At first he meditated three to there’s also a slew of other resources four hours a day then increased to six, available including his books on ADHA and eight hours. He ate simply, twice a day, more. from a stainless steel cup, slept on the John has taught gender differences floor, and started the day with a cold bath. and ways of understanding communication Had his brother not needed assistance in styles for over 40 years now, and he 1978 with bipolar disorder, John may still continues to evolve. I learned that he be meditating. He moved to Los Angeles, realized healthy human relationships California intent on finding a cure for
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Bipolar disorder. Life’s experiences such as these positive desires are the seeds of love, marriage, divorce, remarriage, child knowledge that we can have what we want. rearing and so forth taught him what he There is an intuitive pathway back to the needed to know, guided him to write his true self.” John explained, then added that books and extend his practice, as well as through the spaciousness created in formal academic education including his meditation, the intimacy of our sexuality, doctorate from Columbia Pacific University. and the peak state of love, we can sustain happiness, which opens our heart. “By John cites the time he spent with spending hours in mediation, you can hide Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and in meditation as from the world,” he said, “but your truth will a large part of his awareness. “I developed show up in relationships.” a quiet mind, the spaciousness to observe emotional reactions. You have to witness “When we readjust our expectations, your emotions, embrace them, and create our actions are aligned with a loving heart. space for them to exist. Anger, sadness, With all the negative emotional energy disappointment, fear, concern, inside of us, rather than act on it, we can embarrassment, regret, you have to feel it, embrace it, and then go deeper; embrace your inhibited desires and not be negative emotions serve as a sign post that concern if they are not fulfilled. We all want can lead us back to pure intent so we can go to be loved, to be of service, to support beyond them,” he said. others and be supported. When desire is “America fosters greater introspection, free from negative emotion, we can feel the individuation and freedom of choice,” John pure heart’s desire and the positive said, which leads to a greater potential to emotions including: gratitude, empathy, grow but also offers the risk and danger of wisdom, and appreciation. Contained within
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“From a spiritual foundation, you can witness a reaction but you don’t have to act. You can be compassionate, feel your feelings and embrace and reassure your true intent. With wisdom you can adjust your belief systems and expectations. You can continue to believe in self-desire, just adjust your expectations, go with your intuitive intelligence and start again with an open heart.” wanting more. And, when you don’t get it, “I was listening with more focus, not you feel frustration, anger, disappointment, forgetting,” John said. “I was better and fear. “On the other hand, if you don’t romantically; it was effortless like 30 years want more, there’s no Pandora’s box of ago when we were first getting together.” emotions to deal with,” he said. His prescription for healing? Extra amino “From a spiritual foundation, you can acids (building blocks for protein witness a reaction but you don’t have to act. construction), vitamins and minerals, and You can be compassionate, feel your feelings probiotics to improve his digestion. As his and embrace and reassure your true intent. health improved, his brain function With wisdom you can adjust your belief organically improved. “Good nutrients, systems and expectations. You can continue healthy digestion, emotional support, lower to believe in self-desire, just adjust your stress levels and managing my stress in expectations, go with your intuitive healthier ways improved our relationship,” intelligence and start again with an open John said. heart.” “I’ve helped a lot of people since then,” he “Negative emotions call for higher said, then explained that literature reviews practice,” he said. “In China, a deity can be and searches in data bases such as Pubmed beautiful and loving as well as fierce, angry, yield few studies researching supplements; terrifying. They are portrayed with garlands they remain questionable, not certified. Most of skulls and mediators imagine demons sources cannot say they can ‘quantifiably attacking them. The idea is to sit and feel reverse symptoms’ or ‘halt them’, though the fear, to feel the anger, you can’t deny it. studies do exist (Qureshi & Al-Bedah, 2013). First you have to feel the emotion and go According to John, much of the food we through it to reach the positive feeling underneath.” consume today is mineral-deficient (poor soils, pesticides, toxins in our water combine A Second Awakening to affect our farmed food sources). However, Another experience in his awakening there is greater awareness today of the need occurred 15 years ago when he was to eat organically grown fruits and diagnosed with early stage Parkinson’s vegetables, and that at times supplements disease. He opted for natural solutions may support the quality of our ultimate versus medical interventions and health, which then impacts optimal brain psychopharmacology and successfully function and optimal digestion and in the end reversed the disease. During the healing our relationship skills. process and thereafter, his wife, Bonnie, noticed he had become a better husband.
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According to John, our optimal digestion is “When you move through states of inhibited after many generations taking extreme stress and emotions come up, you antibiotics. Our food is filled with pesticides, deplete the body of nutrients, vitamins, there’s toxicity in our air, these compromise minerals. Athletes require extra nutrients to our gut microbiota (formally called gut flora reach their peak performance; people with a they help the body digest foods that the genius IQ are at the highest risk of stomach and small intestines can’t, help schizophrenia. We are giving Ritalin and produce vitamins B and K, play an important Adderall to children who are said to have a function in our immune system, and ensure brain dysfunction when in fact they have a proper digestive functioning). Digestion is highly functioning brain—a high performance incomplete. Proper management of our brain requires more nutrients not drugs with emotions will improve our digestion just as proven, detrimental side effects.” improving our digestion will help us embrace our emotions. Good Digestion is One Way to Health Fear is often experienced as a queasy “If you are stressed you feeling in your gut. Distress causes cortisol production, which results in inflammation in are not digesting the gut that inhibits brain function. The more anxiety you feel, the more cortisol is protein. To focus on produced resulting in more inflammation. John discussed supplements and a natural digestion you have to focus on neurotransmitters such as dopamine (associated with our pleasure get the brain to calm reward system), serotonin (associated with depression, memory, social behavior and down, calm the adrenal mood balance) and gaba (known to reduce stress and tension and promote relaxation glands and allow the (for more information see page 137) “Society offers a variety of distractions gut to heal itself. You and addictions to prevent us from feeling emotions, rather than feel what’s inside. Say want to improve we feel sad so we eat sugar to artificially stimulate and produce dopamine. We go into digestion and help the this made-up feeling, produced in the outer world. It does not come naturally, from system create its own within. We become dependent on outer things and can’t generate positive feelings.” neurotransmitters so “If you are stressed you are not digesting you are not dependent protein,” he said. “To focus on digestion you have to get the brain to calm down, calm on external the adrenal glands and allow the gut to heal itself. You want to improve digestion and help the system create its own interventions.” neurotransmitters so you are not dependent on external interventions.” John said
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“Children are diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, estrogen and create hormonal balance. He bipolar disorder. But no one is talking about said that he’s seeing excesses in pheno- nutrients and destruction of the gut. estrogens because of the toxins in our Vaccinations and antibiotics destroy the gut food—pesticides bind with estrogen receptor microbiota. Children are born with gut sites and throw off our natural balance of destruction because of their mother’s health. estrogen and testosterone. It is no mystery that 1 out of 6 children And, since July 2016 is a bit down the road, need assistance learning, that 1 out of 50 I’m sure we can anticipate changes and have autism, that 1 out of 5 boys are on surprises in his keynote address as John Ritalin or Adderall. That’s why I wrote my continues to expand his knowledge and book, Staying Focused. It is a crime to tell approach as he offers his gifts to our field. parents there are no side effects when giving their children these drugs.” “There are a host of natural solutions John Gray, Ph.D. is the #1 bestselling relationship author of all time. He is the author of over 20 books, including dietary change and supplements including The New York Times #1 Best-Selling that have no side effects. There are healthy Relationship Book of All Time: MEN ARE FROM MARS, ways a child with ADHD can live such as WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS. His books have sold over taking supplements that are the precursors 50 million copies in 45 different languages in 145 countries around the world. for dopamine and serotonin. You have to find out what works for each individual John is a leading internationally recognized expert in child’s gut biomes. When the digestion is the fields of communication and relationships. His inhibited, it helps to get gluten out of the unique focus is assisting men and women in diet and make some other major dietary understanding, respecting and appreciating their differences. John's advice can be easily used to changes. For instance, adding in grapeseed improve relationships at home and in the workplace. extract and vitamin C, for many children will immediately increase focus, concentration, For more than 35 years, he has conducted public and and comprehension.” private seminars for thousands of participants. John entertains and inspires audiences with practical “This information is available but it is not communication techniques. John's mission is for men being presented in the mass media. There and women to understand, respect, appreciate and work together. was a PBS special on ADHD that identified the symptoms and conditions. Then, rather John Gray is a popular speaker on the national and than offer natural solutions, they had a international lecture circuit and often appears on television and radio programs to discuss his work. He string of doctors saying Ritalin and Adderall has made guest appearances on such shows as Oprah, had no side effects, no danger even though The Dr. Oz Show, Good Morning America, The Today this has been proven to be wrong.” Show, The CBS Morning Show, Live with Regis, Fox & Friends Weekend, Good Morning New York, Larry King What to Expect in Rhode Island Live, CNN and Company and many others. He has been profiled in major publications across the United During his keynote address, John will States. John Gray lives with his wife, children and focus on differences between men and grandchildren in Northern California. women biologically speaking in terms of how Visit www.MarsVenus.com they manage stress. He will touch on the References: impact of inflammation in the gut. And he will discuss the reality that men are hyper Qureshi, N. A., & Al-Bedah, A. M. (2013). Mood disorders and complementary and alternative focused and detached while women tend to medicine: A literature review. Neuropsychiatric be overwhelmed and hyper distracted, with Disease and Treatment, 639-658. doi:10.2147/ a sense of, “I must do it all.” NDT.543419 He will share behavioral changes and Young, S. N. (2007). How to increase serotonin in the nutritional changes and teach a ten minute human brain without drugs. Journal of Psychiatry physical exercise to help detox the liver and and Neuroscience, 32(6), 394-399. assist the lymphatic system remove excess
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In honor of Eugene T. Gendlin
The USABP Life Time Achievement Award Winner 2016
GENDLIN ON FOCUSING
Focusing is simply the little, specific essence of directing the person's attention to what is not yet clear. And what is not yet clear can be directly sensed in the body. There is a special level, a special kind of space, a special kind of attention that most people don't know, to allow the body to form a wholistic sense of some problem. If one can stop and allow the body to respond to that, that problem or anything, there will be a bodily sense that will not be clear at first, no matter how much one knows about the problem. It includes everything one knows, but it is always a single whole, a single sense. This bodily sense has his own directions. It has its own need to form a further step. And something comes there, which one can't get any other way (Gendlin & Lietaer 1983).
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Eugene Gendlin, Somatic Pioneer
By Ann Weiser Cornell
One of the most important and influential trusting another, that enabled them to figures in somatic psychology is… a escape the Nazis, when many other families philosopher. Odd? Actually not. Because the were blocked from leaving the country and more we learn about Eugene Gendlin’s later were sent to their deaths. When Gene revolutionary philosophy of the body, the asked, “Papa, how did you know you could more it makes sense that he is known as not trust that person?” his father tapped his one of the originators of modern body- chest and said, “I follow my feeling” (Korbei, oriented psychotherapy. 2007).
Gendlin’s influence is well-documented. When emotional reactions can famously In October 2010, when Peter Levine lead us astray, what kind of feeling is it that received the Lifetime Achievement Award can be trusted to guide us through life-and- from the U.S. Association for Body death decisions? That would be what Psychotherapy, he recommended Gene Gendlin calls a “felt sense,” a freshly Gendlin from the stage to be the next forming, wholistic sense of a situation that recipient of the award, citing Gendlin’s has a “more than words can say” quality to seminal contributions to his work, Somatic it. Throughout human history people have Experiencing. Gendlin’s Focusing was had felt senses, but until Gendlin came incorporated by Ron Kurtz into his Hakomi along no one had named them or explained Method (1997), and both SE and Hakomi led them. What was the unique life journey that to Sensorimotor Therapy (Ogden et al., led him to see what was under all of our 2006). Bessel van der Kolk (in his foreward noses? to Ogden et al., 2006) lists Gendlin’s Focusing as one of the primary ways to help The Road to Focusing traumatized individuals feel safe with feelings and sensations. In fact, anyone Young Gene arrived in the US with his working somatically today owes a debt to family in 1938, and they settled in Gendlin’s paradigm-shifting discovery of the Washington DC. He served in the Navy in bodily “felt sense” as a source of meaning the Pacific theater at the end of World War and change. II, and on the long night watches he began thinking about the nature of time. On a bus Eugene Gendlin was born into a Jewish ride, he picked up a volume on the history family in Austria in 1926. At age 11, young of philosophy, and discovered that other Gene watched his father make intuitive people had been thinking about the same choices, trusting one person and not
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The key to successful psychotherapy outcomes was in the body.
kind of thing. When he went back to school, the clients spoke – “Uh . . . I’m not sure philosophy was the ticket. how to say this . . . It’s right here . . . It’s not exactly anger . . . ” – that they were in In 1952, as a philosophy graduate student touch with something immediate, real, and at the University of Chicago, young Gene hard to describe. Furthermore, these clients joined Carl Rogers’ psychotherapy training often gestured towards their bodies when program and began a collaboration with saying things like “it’s right here.” The key Rogers that ultimately transformed both of to successful psychotherapy outcomes was them. Gene’s input changed the type of in the body. research being done by the Rogers group and ultimately caused Rogers to reformulate Focusing was Gendlin’s name for what his theory of the human change process. In these clients were doing naturally, and also On Becoming a Person (1961) Rogers gave the name he gave to the method of credit to Eugene Gendlin “whose facilitating this process in anyone. He gave demonstrated ability to think in new ways the name “felt sense” to the bodily about [psychotherapy] has been particularly experience of something immediately felt helpful, and from whom I have borrowed and hard to describe. For Gendlin, a felt heavily.” Gene (in a personal sense is actually the organism forming its communication) summed up their next step in the situation the person is living connection this way: “Without Carl Rogers I in. A felt sense is like a doorway that opens would not have been possible.” in the wall of frozen structure. When a felt sense forms there is always some kind of What Gendlin brought to Rogers in the pausing, some kind of turning toward psychology department was a question he “something.” What we then find may be had been wrestling with in the philosophy murky, unclear, vague, and not feel like department: how an experience that comes much – but the fact that it formed is already before words becomes an idea framed in the beginning of our life moving forward in words. We know more than we can say . . . new and fresh ways. and the place where we know it seems to be, remarkably, the body. Given these exciting developments, you might think Gendlin would have switched Gendlin and Rogers collaborated (along from philosophy to psychology. But Gendlin with others) on important early research on remained a philosopher. He received his psychotherapy outcomes. The research Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of showed that clients who “freshly referred to Chicago in 1958 and taught there from 1964 ongoing felt experiencing” during the to 1995. During the same years he was an therapy sessions tended to have award-winning psychotherapist. (In 1970 significantly more positive therapy outcomes the Psychotherapy Division of the APA gave than clients who merely talked about their him their First Distinguished Professional problems or their emotions. The raters, Psychology Award. He has since been listening to the tapes, could tell from how honored by the APA three more times.)
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In 1963 he founded (and for many years nonconscious” (Ogden et al., 2006, p. 5), was the editor of) the Journal of and describe processing from this level as Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and “bottom up.” Many of us who work in a body Practice and helped to found the APA’s -oriented way know intuitively that the body Division of Psychotherapy (Division 29). He is more than that. But we need the concepts is also the founder and developer of a that Gendlin’s philosophy offers, to really method of psychotherapy called Experiential think about the body in a new way. Gendlin Psychotherapy, though today his influence is defines “body” as the interactive process of more directly found in the method known as being alive, experienced from the inside. Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy. Images, emotions, moods, even many “thoughts,” are experienced in and from this In 1981 his book Focusing, published for body. This “body” is not separate from mind, a popular audience in 1979, was picked up and is not “bottom-up” as opposed to “top- by Bantam Books. It has sold half a million down.” This body, as lived from inside, can copies and has appeared in seventeen speak to us not just about physiology, but languages. In 1996 his ground-breaking about life, meaning, purpose, intention, and book for psychotherapists was published by connectedness. Guilford: Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy. His non-profit organization, The Focusing Lynn Preston, developer of Focusing- Institute, has been the hub of a worldwide Oriented Relational Psychotherapy, told me: community of Focusing teachers, Focusing- “What Gene says about the body is that all oriented therapists, and people using of our history, our emotions, our thoughts, Focusing for self-help, emotional and generations of trauma and knowledge, our physical healing, creativity, leadership, genes, all of this that makes up the vastness spirituality, and much more (Cornell, 2013). of our experience, we can touch into in the sensual palpable realm of internal space. At the same time, he has made huge Gene is developing our understanding of contributions to philosophy, especially on how people are not chopped up into body the relationship between logic and implicit and emotion and thinking. They are all part intricacy. Over the past sixty years he has of one system, and we are part of a system published three books on philosophy and larger than we are.” over 100 articles, appearing recently in such books as After Cognitivism: A Reassessment Today more than ever we need a theory of Cognitive Science and Philosophy and that shows how we are all woven together Knowing Without Thinking: The theory of rather than torn apart, and practices that the Background in Philosophy of Mind. include the body essentially in healing. Our Within philosophy his work is just as deepest gratitude to Eugene Gendlin, revolutionary as it is within psychology, a somatic pioneer, for showing the way to put “reversal of the usual philosophical body at the center of our understanding of order” (Gendlin, 2004) in which felt bodily life itself. experiencing underlies and precedes divisions into formal categories. He has developed a process called Thinking at the Ann Weiser Cornell became a student of Edge (TAE), which points to the way that felt Eugene Gendlin in 1972 and is still learning body process forms the basis of all original from him. She is the author of The Power of thinking and concept creation. Once again, Focusing and Focusing in Clinical Practice: the body is at the core. The Essence of Change, and offers over 75 seminars each year through her business, Gendlin’s Redefinition of the “Body” Focusing Resources. http:// focusingresources.com Even today, many people speak of the body as “instinctual and References on page 138
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Dancing with Gravity
By Darrell Sanchez
To be human means to orient vertically; it is our most fundamental human orientation. We live the majority of our lives in a vertical posture, assuming the advantages and challenges of the evolutionary development of a vertical spine. From infancy on we don’t waste any time trying to get ourselves vertical. Place a baby on his stomach and one of his first movements is to raise his head. He doesn’t stop there. As soon as possible he proceeds to push up, sit up, and stand up.
Yet, integrated vertical standing is not a (2007, p. 181). fixed and rigid state. Rather, it is a dynamic Imagine standing on a gently moving stance that makes continual fine surface that activates nerves and muscles in adjustments in gravity. This continual stable the feet and ankles and sets our postures in motion in our posture and internal organs motion, stimulating postural proprioceptors. rouses information in the form of emotions, Standing on a gently moving surface memories, thoughts and sensations. When challenges our stuckness. By doing so we our entire posture is set in motion, the experience that balance is not a fixed state organs of our bodies are also set in motion. but is relative to motion and continual Our internal organs also have sensory and adjustments in gravity. During my somatic motor nerves that travel to and from the trauma studies, I invented a special kind of brain transmitting information and response balancing board upon which people stand to movements of the body. “The more that I call the Tuning Board. The name viscerally aware, the more emotionally comes from the word “attune”, meaning to attuned you are,” say the Blakeslees in their bring into harmony, awareness, book, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own understanding and responsiveness.
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It is a psychokinesthetic tool that therapists can use to help get clients more fully into their bodies. It produces motion that goes through the entire body, including the viscera and the autonomic nervous system. This movement, caused by our weight in gravity, stimulates sensory nerves that travel from the feet, ankles, and knees up the body and into our heads. They register, consciously or not, through the spine and up to the top middle-center portion of our neocortex. This means that the feet are essentially in the brain. So, too, the brain is in the feet. Motor nerves that respond to movement and stimulation travel back down the spine and to the muscles that work our balance and posture. This coordination of stimulation and response up and down the nervous system is vertical integration and is a vital factor in psychological well-being (Rolf, 1977; Siegel, 2006, 2010).
Vertical integration occurs when differentiated structures and the resources of embodiment associate, function in unity, and keep us upright. Siegel (2006) associates vertical integration with the middle pre-frontal area of the brain that enables appropriate physical and emotional response to our relationships and the world around us. Balance and verticality are intimate partners that draw on integration, i.e., all parts working together in harmony. Thus, integration is necessary for creative flow, emotional well-being, and postural motion and stability.
Flow happens as we engage in a living relationship with our imperative need for transformation and growth. The experience move the way it used to. Maybe it happened of standing on the Tuning Board is not only when we were trying to decide whether to a biomechanical task that increases remain in a current job or relationship or to someone’s awareness and skill at balancing; move on to something different. Being it also evokes a symbolic creative stuck feels like we can’t access the creative imperative of how we manage the polarity flow of life and shrinks us away from the of stability and change. However, people get world of possibility around us. From a stuck. We get that way because of trauma, somatic perspective, we become dissociated injury, aging, conditioned habits, facing from our innate interoception, or the ability difficult choices, and so on. Perhaps we to sense what is happening in our bodies, have gotten that way because someone rear thoughts, and feelings. -ended us in our car and our body doesn’t
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My colleague, Vivian Gettliffe, and I When I was a dancer, I received regular have identified seven vertical embodiment bodywork sessions to augment my career resources related to vertical integration: in imaginative dance expression. My balance, grounding, centering, orienting, company mates and I realized that it was a spaciousness, healthy myofascial tone and necessary strategy for our dancing survival connection. These are what encourage the and longevity. Back then, all the members coming together of sensation, perception of the dance company I was in received and expression. The Tuning Board can be Rolfing™ Structural Integration—a form of used to specifically develop these resources bodywork that emphasizes good alignment in clients. As they are encouraged, the and a dynamic relation to gravity. I was body itself becomes a primary resource. amazed at the memories, emotions and personal insights that arose during and Working with the Tuning Board kindles after the sessions and began to realize the our kinesthetic sense, or our internal psychological impact they had on me. I awareness of the movement and position of realized that the value of somatic work or our bodies. As therapists, we are always therapy was in how we humans experience tuning into and attempting to resonate with the physical structure and its relation to the our clients’ experiences. We want to feel intangibles of our personal and shared and understand exactly what their realities psychology. Those sessions were the seeds and expressions are as best we can. that inspired me to become a Certified Kinesthetic resonance is the ability to Rolfer® with an impassioned interest in harmonize with the sensations of someone studying somatic psychology, trauma and else. It generates impressions in the creativity. therapist in the form of sensations, thoughts, emotions, images and possible meanings to the expressions of the client with whom we are attuning. This is a holistic and intimately relational experience; it is a knowing that includes and goes beyond a mental understanding of what someone is communicating and includes the somatic and embodied dimensions. This sensing is important to our practice of embodiment—the better our kinesthetic ability, the more embodied we feel. This applies to both therapist and client.
What does it feel like to be more emotionally attuned?
I believe it feels like confidence and equanimity. It feels like the peace and pleasure of embodiment. I have yet to find anyone who does not acknowledge that the flow of movement and the balance of motion and stability feel good.
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Creative transformation occurs when something undergoes fundamental change. A more specific description of the creative process is offered by Henry David Feldman (Csikszentmihalyi, Feldman, & Gardner, 1994). Feldman refers to the process of generating newness as the “transformational imperative,” the dynamic tension of opposing forces and how we relate to and resolve them. Here the primary opposing forces creating tension in Feldman’s imperative are order and chaos, where one force wants to continually bring stability while the other is constantly Creativity draws strongly on fluid moving for change. intelligence, which is defined as the ability What does it mean to consciously face to adapt to new situations (Bristol, the transformational imperative and its Kaufman, & Vartanian, 2013). For me, an existential forces of chaos and order, important meaning of somatic psychology is stability and motion? We encounter this that physical, emotional and cognitive fundamental question in our somatic processes and relationships translate and psychological process of growth, share reciprocal meanings. New insights, development and healing every day. sensations and meanings can and do Standing on a Tuning Board evokes this transfer seamlessly from body to mind and polarity flow of stable motion as a symbolic mind to body. Metaphors for life wave that represents the creative process. demonstrate this intimate relationship And when a client reports a new insight, a (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Such statements new awareness or a new association, we as: “standing our ground,” “reaching for the know that creativity has happened. stars,” and “losing our footing,” are examples. One colleague stood behind her client while the client was on the Tuning Darrell Sanchez, LPC, PhD, has practiced and Board. Instantly, the client reported she taught therapeutic modalities based on the could feel the therapist’s support, like the integration of mind and body for over thirty saying, “you have my back.” Another years. His expertise in trauma therapy is colleague’s client shared her insight that informed by a background in structural when she began to deeply embody what integration, movement therapy, dance, creativity grounding is from standing on the Tuning studies, somatic experiencing, and other somatic modalities. As a structural integrator, he brings Board, it brought up sadness that she a deep understanding of human verticality and doesn’t have more support in her life. the primordial relationship with gravity to his Awareness of somatic sensations generated psychological work. His work facilitates creative by postural movements helps make transformation through engaging the whole associations and integration between the person. body and psychological processes more References on page 140 likely. I realized that any study of creativity I would be excited about had to include a more fully embodied experience into the Learn more at Darrell’s session at meaning of being human. the USABP conference on using the Tuning Board and vertical embodiment to help the body
reclaim its place as primary resource.
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Into the Void: A Journey of Longing, Love and Eros
By Lisa Loustaunau
I am about to take two risks. The first is a great big leap into the unknown; at age 62 I have decided to end a marriage of 30 years. The second is to begin this article with this disclosure, which I have chosen to do because alongside my vulnerability is an energetic expansion and a clarity related to the decision to let go. To let go of what is known in my life and allow myself to be guided by inner truth into a void. To move into the unknown with trust in my heart knowing that this is a move toward love.
Over the years I have accompanied Perhaps you are asking yourself if I have clients of every age as they struggle with a secret lover who is inviting me to a new major life decisions. Do I let go of this job, level of late-life sexual fulfillment waiting for this partner, make this move, say yes to this me on the other side of divorce? In truth opportunity? No stranger to the fears, something more compelling is calling me ambivalence, and at times paralysis that can forth—a deep felt sense of the life-force overtake us all when facing major life pulsing in every cell of my body urging me decisions, I know the multifarious obstacles, to honor my longing. Clear as a bell it questions and “what if’s” that make critical beckons me forward toward more aliveness, life choices arduous. Yet here, at one of the more love, and yes, why not, perhaps the most consequential junctures of my life, with possibility of late-life sexual fulfillment. I mind still, energy grounded, and heart open, step forward with no guarantees, knowing I am just saying, “Yes.” only that my willingness to step into the void is what opens me to new possibilities. Goodness, the old me barely recognizes the new me.
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into technicolor, and in which we often find ourselves behaving in all manner of unfamiliar ways, longing stirs us to our possibilities, the life within us not yet lived and asking to be born. Both eros and longing invite us to know our “otherness.” In our longing, we concurrently hold our being and our becoming as one.
Most people I meet these days, both in and out of my practice, hold that life is a journey. A journey of consciousness and ongoing transformation, a journey of being It’s been a journey to get to the place and becoming. Just as for children during where I can trust my heart in this way. critical phases of early development, every Twenty-three or so years ago, while turn in the spiral of our lives invites us to attending a workshop led by John Pierrakos bring into expression more of who we are. In MD, Core Energetics founder, we were led as so doing, we simultaneously discover more participants through an exercise he called, about our nature, our energy, our “A Step Toward Love.” John asked us to capabilities and our gifts. stand and to find the felt sense of longing in our body. My heart grew weighty and my Why then do we and our clients resist or chest swelled with the depth and breadth of disown many of our inner and outer energy that semi-sweet sad sensation as I began to movements? What holds us back from touch my longing. He invited us to stay with feeling our eros, from honoring our longing, it, then close our eyes, raise our arms, and from living with an open heart, from reach with the force of that longing. I could stepping forward with the full commitment feel the energy surging from my heart of our life force toward our becoming? through my arms. The next instruction was to walk forward, at whatever pace felt real, We are born into this vast universe of toward that which he simply called “Love.” energy with all of our inherent potential Instantly my mind began to formulate within our Core. However, the experience of questions. “What does this mean?” “How deficits, frustrations, and traumas, specific do I get?” “What exactly is it that I particularly at critical developmental stages am longing for?” “What’s the point of even along the way, diminish our capacity to doing this?” Although I could feel myself bring our full self to the next growth stage in walking and reaching, most of my energy which we are meant to fulfill a particular had shifted out of my heart and into my task as part of our essential development as head. I had to make frequent stops to humans. Because growth and movement is reconnect with my body. It was a challenge not optional for children, the developing ego to stay embodied and present to the feeling finds all sorts of compensations and and difficult to walk with any enduring adaptations with which to deal with these consciousness of that longing as the fuel deficits. If a particular need creates too propelling me forward. much pain or frustration, the solution is to close down the energy to that need and in To feel and honor our longing is one of so doing the consciousness of that need. If the greatest gifts we can offer ourselves. in reaching for love or nourishment or More soul-infused than mere desire, it rises support, that movement fails to often- from the depths as a kind of fuel for our enough produce the forthcoming of what is transformation. Like eros, that energy that sought after, then that need as well as the awakens us to our attractions and brings life movement that physically expresses that
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Our capacity to feel the quality of our energy in these changing shifting movements, to allow this flow, is pleasure in living.
need, gets closed down as a form of self- Each step in this journey toward what is protection. Ultimately we arrive into unknown in us—our otherness—engenders adulthood with a body earmarked with an increased experience of aliveness. Our discernible energy leaks, splits and blocks capacity to be with and hold what we have that have shaped both our bodies and our previously disowned, builds and expands consciousness. energetic tolerance. The greater our capacity to contain and sustain energy in Spiritual literature is peppered with the the body, the more alive we feel. If our term broken-ness as the description of bodies are free and responsive we can an essential characteristic of the adult charge (build) and discharge (release) human condition. Spirituality posits the energy with the rise and fall of each full cause of this brokenness as being our breath, with the natural rise, expression separation from God. The healing of this and release of all of our vital emotions, and condition is through the journey back to in the arousal-orgasm-discharge cycle of oneness with God. our sexuality. Our capacity to feel the quality of our energy in these changing Though the terminology differs, healing shifting movements, to allow this flow, is in Core Energetics is also a journey back to pleasure in living. energetic integrity, to unity, and oneness. Interestingly, to ultimately reach that goal Pleasure in the above definition, has is not really the point! The point is the little to do with having things go our way, ongoing expansion and movement and or never feeling unpleasantness or willingness to reclaim the energy we have frustration, or having a guarantee that we left behind at the various junctures in our will never have our heart broken again. life. We look back at our history with that Pleasure is in the very experience of our reclamation in mind. Focused-energy work vitality, of our pulsation and supports the recovery of what may responsiveness. There is pleasure in saying presently feel like our otherness—the lost yes to life, free of the expectation of never movements and disowned feelings, needs, being hurt, with the freedom that comes or aggression. Energy, emotions and from a willingness to accept hurt, an OK to sensations held captive, unexpressed or having our hearts broken, grateful that we distorted into other presentations can thus have a heart that can feel and break. We be reintegrated into the flow of our have after all, in some form or another embodied being and consciousness. This is already survived this. Far more costly and what it means to heal our splits, our painful is to never risk living fully again. brokenness, as this restoration of energy With nothing to defend we have nothing to flow weaves together the divided energy fear within us. currents to heal the conflicts between head, heart, and sexuality.
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This doesn’t mean there in no fear. Fear ground that supports me. I feel in love with will always be a part of life, as it should be, life and more than a little proud of myself, a as a basic life protecting emotion. The 62-year-old, unwilling to compromise her problem with fear is how it surfaces from longing or set aside her eros. Life is too our history disconnected from any real or short and holds too much potential for that. present danger, as a nervous system knee- jerk reaction to change. Fear is problematic when it grips us and stops us from moving Lisa Loustaunau MFA, CCEP, is Director of toward that which we desire, toward our Education at the Institute of Core longing, our next step, our otherness. Energetics. In private practice for 20+ years, she is also an international workshop The antidote to fear is courage, a quality leader, process facilitator, teacher and of the heart. Etymologically courage stems supervisor of Core Energetics practitioners from the root word meaning heart (Latin: in the USA, Canada, Holland, Australia, cor). Every step we take to follow our heart, Brazil and Mexico. Lisa is currently working each plunge into the unknown, builds our on a book entitled Out of the Comfort Zone: courage and our undefended open- Overcoming the Blocks to Living and Loving. heartedness. Lisa will be presenting at the USABP For the adult, the journey of consciousness convention in July, 2016 in Providence, RI. requires us to embrace what we have Her experiential workshop will be open to disowned and by recovering our lost energy the public. bring more of ourselves to our next step. This is a YES to all of who we are. It includes an awareness of all the ways we have said NO to ourselves along the way, or are still saying no, consciously or Overcoming the unconsciously; not with shame but with humility and a willingness to face ourselves Blocks to Living and fully. In so doing we take full responsibility. There is enormous power in this. No longer Loving: attached to blaming others for what is unfulfilled in us, we can center ourselves in A Core Energetics our essential creativity. Courage and willingness to explore the territory within Workshop Sampler simultaneously generates a parallel willingness to take bigger risks in our outer life. It is a beautiful experience to feel the ongoing interconnection of energy within with Lisa Loustaunau and without. It is the gift of deep work on the self. July 23, 2016
So here is where I stand today, putting 12:45pm - 4:45pm the finishing touches on this article and feeling a connection to my essential creativity, where so much feels possible. I am walking forward into unknown territory USABP Convention unsure of where I will live or be in a few months time following my divorce. But my Providence, RI head and heart feel unified, I feel the gift of the energy that moves in me as me, and the
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Being with the Traumatized Person
By Marcel Duclos
We speak of sexuality and spirituality The human person is a meaning needing because we are incarnate. Psyche and and making animal who will live in the Soma, Soma and Psyche, Psyche in Soma shadows of existential panic were assaultive and Soma with Psyche and on and on it pain fail to transform into meaningful and cascades in, through and by bios. And all of redemptive suffering. Here enters the role of this quite imperfect, never complete, a body inclusive psychotherapist. subject to the events of the secret life of We have learned from each other, genes, past and present environment and from different professions and fields of interpersonal dynamics. But there is a felt research, how to discover the essential near infinite distance between sexuality and ingredients of such a transformation. The spirituality, the dance of body and the dance literature of our professions, the wisdom of of mind, when the organism has suffered the authentic world cultures respectful of early assaults resulting in the destructive natural humanity have taught us much. loss of brain structures and networks. Such And so has the oft experienced encounter is the person who has been traumatized and with the behavioral consequences of the is now struggling to be in this interpersonal dead-ended chaos within a traumatized realm in survival mode, with little skills to person’s organism. In this and more, we access a thriving existence. Sexuality have come to know that at the heart of the presents as threatening sex. Spirituality healing process swimming in the cellular hides behind delusions. Neither one offers a soup of our client lies a quintessential sine- craft sufficiently buoyant to ride the storms qua-non: the experience of a hospitable that cross the human journey without a other fully present. shipmate to rudder what is too often a repetitive drowning in meaningless pain.
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How fortunate we are to have had the French scholar, Teilhard de Chardin, remind us that, “Matter is psyche moving slowly enough to be seen.” And how therapeutically useful it is to have our European colleague, Michael Heller, remind us that, “In the case of stress, it is better to be aggressive and active than to be resigned.” For the question in the treatment of the traumatized person is not, among other possible errant possibilities, “Why are you behaving this way?” but “What happened to you?” It is the intent of the presenter of the workshop: A Way of Being with the Traumatized and Violated Person to lead a cognitive, feeling and sensate experience that may offer us a renewed equilibrium as we dare to Be With the dysregulated and out of balance other on the waters of this person’s storm. We will somatically reflect on our ever changing ability and willingness to trust the guidance and process of our Higher Self, a source beyond our constructed ME, according to William James and nearly a century later, John Pierrakos. Goethe expressed it well when he wrote, “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.” Richard Schwartz, the Founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, puts it this way when he invites us to join the other in the sacred presence of two Selves: “... genuine self-compassion is a journey into the multiple parts of yourself - the good, the bad, the ugly, the confused, the abandoned – so as to make friends with those parts on the deepest levels. Our journey to full acceptance of the other first necessitates our full acceptance of ourselves.” The workshop will navigate these waters welcoming the shoals at the mouth of the harbor.
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Sunflower Mind®:
Exploring our Embodied Relational
Process
By Serge Prengel, LMHC
A sunflower moves with the sun.
“Moves”? Language has built-in assumptions. Words for movement reflect action. Somebody moves (active agency), or is moved (the result of somebody else’s action). In each case, there’s the implication that, at one end of it or another, somebody is actively involved.
Does the sunflower have a mind of its own, or a will to turn?
Or is it the slave of the sun, unable to resist its charismatic power?
Or?
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In Greek mythology, Apollo coursed his chariot across the sky every day, pulling the sun from East to West. The seas were controlled by Poseidon. Zeus, of course, threw thunderbolts. Everything – even little rivers – were “animated” by some sort of a deity.
“Animated”: brought into movement.
“Inanimate”: not alive.
“Anima”: the soul.
Mythology says that it takes “spirit” to move and to be alive. That is, it takes a sort of person to make movement, and life, possible.
We no longer believe that it takes a charioteer to move the sun, or a nymph to make a river flow. As for sunflowers, the modern explanation of why they turn is “phototropism”:
- “Light” is just another word for movement of electrons.
- This affects plant hormones, which then expel positive ions.
- The chemical structure of the cell wall changes, weakening the side of the plant that is in the dark.
- This results in the plant physically orienting toward the sun.
No consciousness, no will. It is about molecular energy, chemistry, physics. ———
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There is no “little person” in the sunflower with the consciousness or the will to turn, and no “big person” in the sun to force the sunflower to turn.
What about us, people?
Of course, we have a mind, and a will. But we cannot make full sense of who we are and what we do if we just think in terms of mind or will. In the past few decades, a profound revolution has been happening in the neurosciences, focusing attention on “bottom up” processes. Traditional psychology sees things in terms of “top down” processes: It takes consciousness and will (top) to make things happen at the body level (down). In contrast, contemporary findings emphasize how much consciousness and will are influenced by “bottom up” processes.
Implicit in the image of the sunflower is the concept of orienting. The position of the sunflower reflects where it is in relation to the sun. The Sunflower Mind approach is about looking at human beings from a similar perspective: we are orienting to our circumstances, our environment, with our whole being.
We grasp a situation as a whole, and we respond to it as a whole, consciously or unconsciously. This is the underpinning of the “felt sense” that Eugene Gendlin talks about in ‘Focusing’. ——— The kind of response we are talking about here is embodied cognition. We respond to a situation with our whole being. Our response, just like that of the sunflower responding to the sun, is movement – which can be fully played out, or just implicit, or anything in- between.
A simple, concrete example: Imagine you’re standing up, and you sense somebody coming behind you with possibly hostile intentions. Chances are you’re going to raise your shoulders, bracing, in anticipation. You’re sensing a threat, and responding to it, without necessarily thinking consciously about what you’re doing. You may not even be aware of that movement. Or you may just experience it as some kind of a hunch, a felt sense, as opposed to a fully articulated understanding of the situation. ——— The possible threat takes precedence over any other preoccupations. It becomes the organizing principle around which your organism is organized. In the preceding sentence, I am heavy handed with the “organizing-organism-organized” words, to make the point that the word “organism” is better understood as a process rather than as a thing.
The organizing principle I am talking about is not something abstract. For instance, in the concrete example I give, the organizing principle is not some generic concept of “fear”. It is a very specific response to the situation as a whole (bracing: raising shoulders, curving spine, in anticipation of a blow). ———
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Being aware of the specific coiling of our organism is what allows us to uncoil it. This can be clarified with an analogy. Let’s say you have an entangled cord, and you want to disentangle it. The only way to do this is to patiently deal with each and every knot in the entangled cord. If you just try to do this from the outside, so to speak, chances are you’ll be making the cord more of a mess than it was.
The word ‘disentangle’ does not describe a specific step (such as the word ‘tighten’ does), or even a specific sequence of movements. It describes a process, an approach, a way of dealing with entangled situations which has to be adapted to each specific situation.
The ‘Sunflower Mind’ approach is about getting an actionable sense of the way our organism has implicitly coiled in response to our situation. ——— In this experiential workshop, we explore our Sunflower Mind. We observe, moment by moment, our bodily experience as an organic response to our interactions with others. We track bodily sensations. Little by little, we allow a pattern to emerge. We notice how we are orienting in response to our environment, just like the sunflower orients to the sun. We experience this orienting as an implicit, unfinished response that needs to be completed.
In this context, the “felt sense” is our experience of the embodied relational process we are in. Getting in touch with the felt sense means that we have a gateway to tap into the embodied relational process. A process is by nature movement, even if the experience we have of it as a given moment is that of feeling stuck. As we become aware of this embodied process as a process, we are ‘carried forward’ by it. We are moved to complete the unfinished response. As we do so, not only do we move on, but we also get a conceptual grasp of what we had been dealing with, essentially because by then we have moved “out of the box” we were stuck in, and can now see the box for what it is. ——— A very safe holding environment makes the intensity of this process not only possible, but actually very satisfying. The structure of the group is inspired by Yvonne Agazarian's systems-centered work. The embodied resourcing approach is inspired by Somatic Experiencing. The focus on the felt experience of relationality is the thread that binds all of this together. ——— Serge Prengel, LMHC, is certified in Focusing, Core Energetics and Somatic Experiencing, and was deeply influenced by Yvonne Agazarian's systems-oriented approach. Serge is co-editor of Defining Moments For Therapists, editor of SomaticPerspectives.com and of LifeSherpa.com. Serge is in private practice in NYC. He also leads experiential workshops on Relational Mindfulness.
If therapy is a relational process, it takes a person on the therapist's end. The goal of this book is to capture the therapist's evolving sense of self as it is shaped by our experiences as active participants in a creative interaction. The essays of this book are first-person accounts, by eleven therapists, of some "Aha!" moments when they got to understand themselves better, and to understand better why they do what they do. Essays by: Cheryl Dolinger Brown, Mary J. Giuffra, Marianne Gunther, Lou Hagood, Claire Haiman, Robin Kappy, Linda Marks, Merle Molofsky, Marjorie L. Rand, Susan Rudnick, and Claire Beth Steinberger. Edited by Serge Prengel and Lynn Somerstein
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Addressing Sexuality in Bioenergetic Therapy
By Laurie Ure, LICSW Certified Bioenergetic Therapist
Embodied sexuality can provide some of the best of what life has to offer including feelings of pleasure, connection and satisfaction. For many people, however, sexuality has led to some of life’s worst experiences—violations, broken connections, and traumas that lead to feelings of shame and guilt. Sexual issues may underlie many mental health issues including depression, anxiety and PTSD. Culturally, we have confused sexuality with how our bodies look rather than how we feel. Helping people restore healthy sexuality, defined as a specific state of vitality in the body, is a central focus of Bioenergetic Therapy. From my many years of therapeutic work with clients I believe that healthy, embodied sexuality, including an orientation towards pleasure, vitality and joy is worth aiming for.
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Historical Overview sexuality from a person’s childhood experience is the focus. “The character Sexuality has been a primary focus in structure and the themes of self-expression Bioenergetic Therapy from the beginning. and self-possession are still my main focus, Wilhelm Reich, a contemporary of Freud and not orgastic potency. The focus, therefore, is the grandfather of modern somatic on sexual issues, not sexual therapies, believed that orgastic potency — potency” (Lowen, 1993, pp.3-8). the ability of a person to build energetic charge and release it in orgasm— is central Other Bioenergetic therapists have to the mental health of a person. He further refined this focus. Miki Frank, a observed that his patients, both male and student of Lowen’s states that orgastic female, consistently did not experience potency is not a reachable goal for all men genital satisfaction, including orgasm and or women, as Reich makes it appear. She states: “Those who are psychically ill need notes that while she has experienced but one thing—complete and repeated orgastic potency at times in her life, orgastic genital gratification” (Reich, 1973). He potency is not a permanent condition. She describes orgasm as being a whole body shifts the emphasis of therapy to a goal of experience, not simply ejaculation, and as wholeness and personal growth, with serving the function of releasing excess orgastic potency as a bonus along the energy of the organism, therefore leaving no journey (Frank, 1993). energy available for neurotic process. In his book, Sex and Self-Respect: The Alexander Lowen highlighted the Quest for Personal Fulfillment, Philip Helfaer importance of sexuality in his development (2007) contributes the idea that self-respect of Bioenergetic Analysis in the 1950s; he is central to personal fulfillment alongside added self-expression as a focus of his work. sexuality. He states that sexuality and self- He learned from his own experience in respect are interdependent within a healthy therapy with Reich and from his experience person. Therapy, therefore, involves helping with his patients that, while genital the individual develop both healthy sexual satisfaction and orgastic potency are expression and a deep sense of self-respect, important ideals, they are not the only goals rooted in body experience. He states: “In of Bioenergetic Therapy. Lowen thus shifted each individual’s very personal experience of the focus from orgastic potency to ego their own sexuality, nothing is more function and self-expression. In his 1983 important than to come to terms with the article titled “Sexuality: From Reich to the reality of the tension, ambiguity, Present,” he states: “The ability to fully ambivalence, guilt, and shame that so express one’s self is the goal of bioenergetic commonly infuses sexuality. This is done by analysis” (pp.3-8). He further states that freeing the body, learning and developing while orgastic potency is important in self-respect and a recognition of the body as Bioenergetic Analysis, the development of self” (Helfaer, 1998).
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Defining Sexuality Sexual feelings A valuable part in clarifying the role of sexuality in Bioenergetic Therapy is to define what we mean by sexuality and to distinguish two primary aspects of sexuality. develop There is the sexuality of a person, referring to state of aliveness in a person, and according to the dictionary definition: “an naturally in the organism's preparedness for engaging in sexual activity” (retrieved from http:// dictionary.reference.com/browse/ body, but most sexuality).The second aspect of sexuality is the act of sex, whether it is with one’s self or with a partner, and relates to one’s gender of us learn to cut and one’s sexual orientation. This is a big topic in and of itself, and for purposes of this discussion, I will focus on the sexuality of the individual. off from our
Preparedness for engaging in sexual activity implies having the energy for sexual sexual activity along with interest and desire. From a Bioenergetic perspective, sexuality is also defined as an energetic charge flowing excitement and through the body, rooted in the pelvis and genitals. This energy is naturally pleasurable, is heightened in passion and energy in builds to energetic climax in orgasm. Sexual feelings develop naturally in the body, but most of us learn to cut off from our sexual childhood excitement and energy in childhood through chronic muscle tensions, in reaction to negative responses from the environment. These responses can include physical through chronic violations as well as disapproval and negative messages. For example, when children are shamed for masturbating they muscle tensions, learn that their desire for pleasure is bad and shut down these feelings in their body. Restoring healthy sexuality includes in reaction to understanding what happened in our childhood experience to cut us off from our innate embodied sexuality, as well as negative working through the negative messages and tensions in the body.
Because we are describing sexuality as a responses from whole body experience, including but not limited to genital response, Bioenergetically, we work with the whole body. We hold as a the environment.
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goal being solidly grounded in the feet and legs, with the belly soft from emotions expressed freely and appropriately, the pelvis relatively free of tension, ideally a heart open to love and being loved, eyes capable of making warm contact, arms ready to reach out for connection as well as to make a boundary when necessary, and a head relatively free of regrets from the past and worries about the future. People who are able to embody their sexuality in a healthy way are capable of being grounded, relaxed and open. They are generally relatively free of shame and guilt, with accompanying comfort with self-expression and living from a position of self-respect. Embodied sexuality includes having energy for sexual expression, with sufficient strength to build charge and being free enough of tensions to enjoy the pleasure of release.
Sexuality in an ideal way also involves an as the expressions of sexuality of a plant. A inner balance of the counter energetic plant can be alive and vital without forces, which can be described as assertive producing flowers. Plants require certain and receptive. These relate to different conditions to create flowers. They require energies—attributes within the individual— the base of a stem with leaves and roots in available as needed. These attributes are order to send up shoots that become found in both men and women. Assertive flowers. The stem of the plant pushes energy has a quality of being directed through the soil reaching for water and outward and can be fierce and protective nutrients, the leaves reach to the sun to when needed. In the act of procreation it receive light. Buds need warmth and light to correlates with the thrusting forward of the open into flowers. Their beauty and color penis into the vagina propelling the sperm attract bees and butterflies to pollinate forward to swim hard in their mission to them. Embodied sexuality can be precursor impregnate an egg. Receptive energy is for beauty, deep connection and sometimes tender, soft, and open to receive. This reproduction. correlates with the warmth and wetness of the vagina—the body opening, inviting the Sexuality can link us to joy, to pleasure sperm into the egg. Both energies are and to our vitality. I think Reich did not go necessary for a person to be optimally far enough in his statements about the sexual. Too much assertive energy, without function of orgasm as physical release. internal receptive balance, creates a person Orgasm connects us to pleasure, in capable of dominating others. Too much ourselves, sometimes to another person, receptive energy without assertion leads to a and at its best, to the cosmos. passive person who is unable to protect themselves or their loved ones (Shapiro, Orgasm requires presence in the 1993). moment, in one’s body, and is about feeling expansive, even ecstatic. We are learning The metaphor of a flowering plant that orgasm causes the release of dopamine describes this embodied sexuality with a and oxytocin (Magon & Kalra, 2011) in the balancing of energies. Flowers can be viewed brain and stimulates our desire for
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attachment. These are important elements safety. Furthermore, people need to be able of feeling loved and maintaining satisfying to have connection on their own terms. This relationships. Orgasm happens as a involves setting boundaries clearly and surrender, within ourselves, to pleasure. strongly, and being able to reach out for Sexuality and orgasm are good for our connection on their own terms. bodies, our relationships and for our connection to the fundamental joy of being Another step in the spiral, is feeling the alive, whether experienced alone, or with a full range of emotions and expressing them partner, whether we are male or female, appropriately, including anger, sadness and and regardless of our sexual orientation. joy. Bioenergetic work includes exercises for opening one’s emotions and expressing Working with Sexuality in Bioenergetic them physically. For example, laying over Therapy the stool or the ball to open the breathing and soft emotions, and hitting with the In my practice, I observe that few clients racket or kicking to express anger, protest explicitly state sexuality as a presenting and build strength. Self-respect and self- problem—they seek help for a variety of acceptance are critically important in the other issues and have varying degrees of spiral of sexual vitality. We incorporate this pain. They seek relief and support to grow focus in the therapeutic work through and ultimately to have more joy and specific exercises for releasing guilt, shame pleasure in their lives. While they may not and negative self-talk. Self-expression is identify sexuality as a problem, I believe another important step. This includes being that it underlies common complaints and able to express oneself with the courage to mental disorders. Helping clients increase be different, as necessary, and to honor their vitality and sexual aliveness, and one’s truth. Bioenergetic Therapy has an encouraging orgastic potency, gives clients orientation toward pleasure and joy. In the possibility of diminished pain— addition, we invite a focus on self- something worth living for! Toward this acceptance and self-respect related to end, Bioenergetic therapists create a gender, sexual orientation and relational pathway, a series of steps for clients. This preferences. spiral of physical and emotional needs forms the path towards sexual vitality. It is not a linear process progressing from one step to the next, but rather a spiraling among these steps.
This spiral starts with safety. People need to develop a sense of safety with the therapist, in the world and in themselves. This includes safety from intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, anxieties and fears possibly based in the present but often stemming from past traumatic experiences. Grounding exercises with the feet and legs encourage a sense of
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When a person is solid enough in the softness to surrender to vulnerability, in above areas, we can also work on their order to have the capacity for orgasm. This sexual issues directly. Understanding the requires both physical and mental work to response in their childhood environment to free the person from physical tensions and their natural sexuality is an important step from mental constraints about experiencing in the process. Further, Bioenergetic sexuality, love, desire and pleasure. Therapists use specific exercises for opening sexuality (i.e., bouncing the pelvis or a Closing Summary backwards arch) developed by Alexander Lowen (1977). We also incorporate Almost everyone in our culture has some bouncing the pelvis on the ball either by history of repression, shame, guilt, and sitting on the ball or laying backwards over negative feelings about themselves, often it. The ball is excellent for bouncing the especially about their sexuality. Working pelvis as this opens the tensions in the with sexuality, both as part of one’s own pelvic area and helps to release the psoas vitality and choosing how one wishes to muscle, which can become constricted in express it, is key to restoring an orientation response to trauma (Berceli, 2006). This is toward joy and pleasure in life. As body particularly effective when combined with oriented therapists we have excellent tools self-expressive statements about sexuality for helping people free both mind and body, designed in the moment for the person and and enjoy their sexuality as a vital part of his/her situation. For example, statements their aliveness. The work can be challenging such as “I have a right to feel good,” or “it’s and takes time; fortunately, we have the my pleasure,” or simply stating “no” or balls for it! “yes” are effective. Combining releasing tensions in the body with positive Laurie Ure, LICSW, Certified Bioenergetic statements counteracting past negative Therapist, is an International Trainer for the beliefs about their sexuality helps people to Florida Society for Bioenergetic Analysis and a begin to reclaim their natural sexual Local Trainer for the Massachusetts Society for Bioenergetic Analysis. She enjoys training feelings. We focus on helping people have Bioenergetic therapists and leading Bioenergetic sufficient energy in their body to tolerate Continued on page 138 building charge and desire, and sufficient
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Birth as an Act of Sex
By Karen Ehrlich
When most people think of childbirth, they don’t think of it as an act of sex. I do. As a homebirth midwife for 40 years, I have had the opportunity and privilege to attend women who labored without any directions or requirements from outsiders. Laboring women are often the embodiment of sex in how they move, how they sound, and on occasion how they experience labor—in fact, some women even orgasm during labors.
After all, the birth canal is the sex canal. My conviction that birth is a sexual event The uterus contracts during labor and during was solidified in my earliest midwife years. orgasm. Oxytocin is the same hormone that Many authors/activists wrote little bits here mediates those contractions during both and there about this realm, but didn’t put orgasm and during labor. The physiologic together a larger picture of sex as a common and neurologic and physical framework for thread throughout childbearing. The most birth and sex are the same. The belief in significant of the authors whose thoughts birth as sex is one that many midwives have bolstered my early impressions were spoken of among ourselves for decades. This childbirth educator Lester Hazell reality is slowly being discussed more often (1969/1976), social anthropologist and among parents and professionals. Still, it is childbirth activist Sheila Kitzinger (1962), below most people’s radar that this could be midwife Raven Lang (1972), and true. psychologist Niles Newton (1955) who strongly compared aspects of sex to aspects
of giving birth.
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In 2003, I completed a master’s thesis that explored this topic -- Life is a Sexually Transmitted Condition: The Sexuality of Labor and Birth. [It is available to read online at
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A laboring woman is not a mechanical device with only a uterus and vagina to be dealt with. She is a whole woman who must be dealt with holistically.
While not all of the elements that and acerbic criticism of all that is wrong Mosher defines for these depths of with HSRC. She conveys some important involvement can be lined up satisfactorily lessons in considering the correlations with a woman’s physical, physiologic, or between sex and childbirth. Among them is subjective experience of labor, there are that clinical views of the female body have many correlations that are compelling and become so fragmented in trying to treat that strengthened my premise. Sex and sexual function and dysfunction that the birth are of the same cloth. whole woman can be missed. So it is with giving birth. A laboring woman is not a One of my thesis advisers prodded me mechanical device with only a uterus and to keep searching for new information and vagina to be dealt with. She is a whole for critiques of Masters and Johnson’s work. woman who must be dealt with holistically. It was no easy task. No matter how many indices and bibliographies I consulted, I Also discovered through the New View couldn’t find more references that refuted conference were psychiatrist Rosemary or enlarged HSRC. Basson and sex therapist and researcher Gina Ogden. Both of these women are In 2002, by some stroke of serendipity, intent on welcoming women to define their I got a notice of a conference that was sexuality and claim their experiences on taking place near my home. Titled A New their own terms, freely and assertively. View of Women’s Sexual Problems, it sparked my interest and I signed up. The Basson initially lodged her modeling of organizers included a wide range of women’s sexual response in HSRC. Then feminists and therapists and educators who she went on to create a model that is were unhappy with how women were being actually several models – diagrams of the viewed and treated in the world of varied experiences that she has heard psychotherapy. described by women in her care that illustrate a complex sexuality. She contends And it was here that I finally found that HSRC is valid for some women some of references for critiques of Masters and the time. However in context of possible Johnson’s work and HSRC. Also here I found long term relationships and women’s actual a raft of information about human sexuality lives, the reality of sex changes. In several that informed even further my belief in a schematics that she published in 2000, she unified vision of women as sexual beings demonstrated some of the variety that throughout all of our lives. women’s lived sexuality might take, One of the most provocative was by including never attaining orgasm, or falling psychologist and sexologist Leonore Tiefer off the neat and orderly HSRC linear curve whose book Sex is Not a Natural Act & in timing. Other Essays (1995) contains her scholarly
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When I think of laboring women who don’t meet the neat and orderly linear curve that is prized by modern maternity care, it again strikes me that we are talking about similar energies. When modern When a woman is women’s sexual experiences don’t fit the norm, they are often abnormalized and medicated. When modern women’s labors don’t fit the norm, they are often recognized as well, mechanized, routinized, medicalized, medicated, and subjected to minor or major surgeries – an atmosphere that makes it extremely difficult to express autonomous, strong, sexuality. Gina Ogden devised a model that includes the spirit and spirituality of women’s sexuality and is the only one I and competent in have seen that has no relationship whatsoever to the linear HSRC. It is made up of interlocking circles that represent continuums of experience. Women Who labor, she often Love Sex: An Inquiry into the Expanding Spirit of Women’s Erotic Experience (1999) expresses her vision of women’s birthright of enjoying their bodies with gusto and finds that giving enchantment. I contend that labor and birth can be experienced by many women in the same spherical, lyrical ways—as ongoing, birth is a whole- interlocking loops that are fed by energy. When a woman is recognized as well, autonomous, strong, and competent in labor, she often finds that giving birth is a woman experience whole-woman experience that connects her body, mind, heart, and soul. It bonds her to sex, to her sexuality, to her history, to the lineage of every woman who has ever given that connects her birth, to her future, to her loved ones, and most importantly to her baby. body, mind, heart, Karen Ehrlich, CPM, LM, MA, having been a part of the renaissance of midwifery in the US in the 1970s, was a homebirth midwife for almost forty years. Now retired from primary care practice, she continues to be active in midwifery and soul. politics locally and nationally, and sits on the board of directors of the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council. Her website is midwifekaren.org.
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Spirituality, Sexuality, The Body and Aging
A Panel Discussion with Marjorie L. Rand, PhD, John Walker Davis, and Laura Sullivan
Many couples give up on the eroticism of their relationship as early as their fifties and even their forties. Or they may separate spirituality from sexuality, or even spirituality from the body. All of these beliefs, concepts and compartmentalizations are choices, not immutable reality. We intend to show how different choices can lead to more desirable outcomes and experiences. We will show you how to keep sex alive into your sixties, seventies and beyond, while you learn how to teach your clients to do it as well. Through energy work, presence, grounding, breath, move- ment and real contact, you can experience the most rewarding relationship years of your life.
Ageless Embodied Sexuality Each band of armoring can limit sexual experience in its segment. The armored By John Walker Davis band around the eyes for instance can lead to an addiction pornography (SEX for Sex can be a universal embodied your eyes only). Likewise the armored band experience at any age. Each part of the around the mouth can lead to eating body is a sexual organ capable of its own disorders (the mouth is such a sex organ!) pleasure sequence. Each part can create energetic dilemmas when not included in a Restricted necks can create problems with sexual experience. As a modern Reichian personal communications and mental trainer, I take the release of basic nervous distortions like depressive thoughts going system tension though orgasm as a much round and round in the head. Armored maligned starting point for overall conditions in the chest area are well known embodied integration. for inhibiting breathing, but at any age breath and sex are important for a deep surrender to love.
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The 440 volts of a free flowing sexuality John W. Davis is an educator/therapist and can, with chest motility, empower a heart program administrator with over 40 years to indeed soar with love. The band from experience in the fields of wellness, healing and personal transformation. His work uses a the diaphragm to the navel has both the mixture of breath work, emotional release and awareness of loneliness and extreme Chinese energy work. He has studied with vulnerability (leading to immobility and internationally recognized teachers of Reichian indecisiveness) and the strong gut use of Therapy, Postural Integration, Polarity Therapy, personal power. When sexual energy flows Chinese Medicine and Joint Mobilization. At through there unintegrated, we find Stanford University, John was part of the ourselves on the merry-go- round rotating Creativity in Business Program with Dr. Michael from Arrogance to Self-pity and back. Ray. John was a long time member of the When each of our armored segments are American Humanistic Psychology Association open, the pelvic generator can power our (AHPA). He is also a founding member of the United States Association for Body being to integrate and embody sexual Psychotherapy (USABP) and the Washington energies that strengthen and enliven us to Professional Counselors Association (WAPROCA). be all that we can uniquely be. As John has delivered papers and held workshops therapists we can hope to be able to at international conferences in Barcelona Spain, challenge the “pleasure anxieties” that Mexico City Mexico, Boston MA, Montreal arise in each segment so this sublime Canada, and San Francisco CA. integration can occur. When we are John is currently Director and Core Instructor of integrated and embodied, sexuality’s 440 the Energenesis Institute, based in Birch Bay, volts empowers us to be fearless and WA with offices in Seattle, WA and Los Angeles, transpersonal with a grounded CA. spirituality.
Sexuality, Spirituality and Aging experimenting with different ways of touch. By Laura Sullivan A simple foot massage can release stress and create pleasure throughout the body. The older we become the more these three Neck and shoulder massage can create a fundamental aspects of our lives begin to pleasurable release as satisfying as a merge. genitally oriented orgasm. As we age we care less what others think about us and There is a beauty to how sex evolves into feel freer to experiment. If not now, when? more spiritual dimensions as we mature through our life experiences. Let us not forget the breath. As body oriented healing practitioners, we all know Sex can also evolve into expanded physical how primary the breath is to everything sensation, where sexual pleasure can be else we do. Breathing long enough in experienced in many different parts of the specific ways can create a physical orgasm. body. Experimenting beyond the few tried- Various breathing techniques are a healthy, and-true erogenous zones can introduce a fun and free way to play with sexuality. myriad of new delights. The ear is an extraordinary part of the body to explore. Yes, sometimes it's important to distinguish So small and delicate, encouraging fine, between sensuality and sexuality. As we gentle movements, yet some tugging and mature our sexuality can benignly express rubbing are sensations that can be quite in a wider variety of sensuous ways. I'm divine. Feet are a relatively safe zone for referring to more than experiencing more
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erogenous zone's on your body, although I am a Becomer. I am always becoming that alone could make life happier. I'm more of myself. The older one grows, the talking about your relationship to other more he or she evolves into a deeper more living beings in the world. If you have a dog true expression of themselves, 65 and over. or a cat that you have a petting relationship Not aged, not elderly, not Senior, not with, let them lead you as to where and how mature, but becoming! firmly they want to be petted. Provide a stable rhythm they can trust. An animal can surrender to bliss in such a way that their experience provides mutual pleasure.
Being out in nature can also create feelings of awe and exultation, profound peace and Laura Sullivan is a Holistic Health Educator and oneness. These same feelings that can be Practitioner, an author and speaker. Her initial felt after a really fine orgasm with a great experience in this field was as a massage partner. therapist in 1972. More training in various modes of bodywork and emotional release Maturing is about staying turned on to life, followed. opening to the sensual pleasure that In the 1980’s Laura explored a number of surrounds us when we open our eyes to see. different approaches to Tantra and enlightened sexuality, knowing in her heart there had to be A critical factor in being available for sexual more to sex than what was commonly and sensual pleasure is keeping the experienced. She discovered she was right. More instrument through which we get to investigation and research ensued, ultimately leading to the perfect partner for Laura, with experience these pleasures functioning well. whom she has enjoyed over thirty loving years. It’s as a 'use it or lose it' proposition. That She heard that sexual attraction usually means our bodies, our sexuality, our diminishes after the first two years. Most sensuality, taste, touch, hearing, vision, fortunately that does not appear to be true in her smell. Let’s take it all in as fully as possible case. She believes attraction can grow and for as long as possible. That is what being deepen over time increasing pleasure and the embodied is about. ability to surrender.
Sexuality, Spirituality and Aging me is very spiritual!, The body is the temple By Marjorie L. Rand PhD for the sprit! Right? So being fully alive is godlike and the most spiritual we can become in this lifetime. We Aging should mean maturing. Sometimes it are not suffering until we get our reward in does, sometimes it may not. But if you have the next world. This is it! Get alive and en- worked on yourself as a couple, or as an in- joy it! Right now! Your body exists to give dividual, hopefully you have become an inte- you pleasure as well as pain and that can grated individual by the time you have be- last well into old age. Ask me. I still enjoy come my age (74). my sexuality, and always have. I do not de- Definition of spirituality: I do not think spir- prive myself of pleasure. Not just in sex, but ituality is something that exists out of the in other bodily pleasures, dance, food, and body. In fact, very much the opposite. The even wine (in moderation). And of course more embodied and alive and present and my yoga, which I now have to do with a grounded you become, the more you realize chair because of my spine surgery, but who what being alive is really about and that, to cares, I would never quit!
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Also by maturity, I would hope people Anyway, you have a body, your genitals are would have been able to heal and integrate just as holy as your heart. Never give up on the heart and the pelvis split, and come life. Sex is life. You’re still alive Let’s hear it! together as whole, integrated individuals, with authenticity, vulnerability and openness Sometimes sex is just HOT! Watch porn Marjorie L. Rand PhD, LMFT has been a whatever! Nothing is off limits even for licensed therapist for 39 years and a certified elderly people. Nothing is out of bounds. No yoga therapist. She was a member of the one can tell you what to do any more. original committee that formed the USABP in 1996 and has been a member of many boards. If your penis and vagina don’t work She is a pioneer in somatic psychotherapy with anymore, there is so much more to sex. If Dr. Jack Rosenberg, who passed Nov. 1, this you do not know it, sex is in the brain! year. She is also an author and/or contributor to Experiment! That can go on for life!. four books and many published articles.
Somatic Psychotherapy Today . . .
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Opening Your Heart for Love
by Olaf Trapp
“All you need is love1”
Love is at the core of the human experience. Generally speaking it is the strongest affection and appreciation we can give to each other. We embody love based on how we experienced love in early childhood. The capability to love ourselves is an essential precondition for loving others, whether in a romantic relationship or, for example, a therapeutic one. As a former teacher of acupressure I am attracted to the richness and creativity of the writing of my teacher Iona M. Teeguarden. In her book, The Joy of Feeling, (2006) she focuses on the connection between heart and love. She writes: “The connection between the heart and love has long been celebrated in poetry and song. Like joy, love is heartfelt emotion. The gratification of love is felt in the chest as a lightness and expansiveness which radiates through the body and into the world” (p.158).
1The title for the Beatles 1967 hit song expresses the main point of this article.
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An open heart makes us vulnerable: we must recognize it as a feeling and therefore enter an uncertain territory, which is the a physiological process in the body . . . , its birthplace for joy, love and creativity and aim is to further the well-being of the which makes us beautiful. But most of us organism, which is experienced as pleasure know how difficult it is to dwell or much less and joy” (p. 10). to live in this territory; we prefer to protect To describe the attitude of how I try to our vulnerability to feel safe because we meet clients at home or in workshops I like know that a heart can “break” after a heavy to quote Gary Inrig (1981) who writes: “The emotional strain like the loss of a loved one. great Russian novelist Dostojevski once If our heart is closed down or tightly wrote, 'To love a person means to see a contracted, we are not free to fall in love person as God intended him to be.' That is a (again). We are not free to feel joy at a beautiful insight, but it does not go quite far deeper level; yet, this lack of freedom enough. To love a person is not only to see influences our ability to express emotions in a person in that way, but to act so that he general. We often feel a sense of will become the person God intends him to separation, not only between ourselves and be." I believe that it is the heart centered others, but also within our self, between our approach of my work, the love for my mind and the deepest feeling Self. This clients that is the most important aspect for separation can be the reason for energetic a successful therapeutic process and which breakdowns, depressive crises and /or the allows the free flow of love within the client feeling of being overwhelmed, even to emerge and manifest. after many years of psychotherapy. The underlying problem is often a matter of traumatic experiences very early in life. In my workshops, the first thing I always On a physical level, we hold tension in do is make time available to create a different body tissue, which can reflect a harmonious group atmosphere, which I call conflict between the desire for love and the forming a group body. The idea is to provide fear of letting love in. To be able to fall in a safe container for participants so they can love (again), we need to get to the bottom risk entering the uncertain territory of of the heart-related injury and face the feeling vulnerable again. From my underlying pain to become open and experience leading therapy groups, I have vulnerable again. My therapeutic experience learned that individual work in the group teaches me that sharing some of my own setting can even be deeper than in an vulnerable experiences can open the door individual session. I generally work with one for clients to share their vulnerability. The person with the group observing. Ideally the willingness of myself as a therapist to be person in focus can experience the support honestly involved at an emotional level in of the other participants through their the therapeutic relationship, without attentiveness, emotional involvement and knowing if it works out or not, impacts empathic feedback. positively on the effectiveness of the I determine who to work within the psychotherapeutic process. group by asking, “Who wants to work next?” From the beginning of my training in This question is always accompanied by my Bioenergetic Analysis (1994-98), I was own internal question, who is sitting on a fascinated by the book written by Alexander hot spot? I focus my attentiveness on the Lowen (the founder of Bioenergetic group body and ask myself, Where is the Analysis) “Love, Sex and Your Heart”, New energy? It is not always the most aflutter York 1988. He states, “Love can be person; sometimes a participant nearly considered an attitude or an action, but we disappears energetically, which attracts my special attention.
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The individual work in front of the a body level shifts can occur. Along this attentive group starts with body reading and relational therapeutic journey, a wide range the creation of a resonating space between of body based interventions from tender me and the client. Dr. Vita Heinrich, an touch to powerful hands-on interventions international trainer for Bioenergetic can be applied to invite aspects of the core Analysis from Germany, describes the Self to be seen. In addition, these physical aspects of the therapeutic interventions can help to heal fragmentation relationship and their relevance for the and energetic splits within the clients so therapy process: “From the beginning of the they can open themselves again for giving meetings with our clients we introduce a and receiving love. somatic element into our relationship with My idea of the deepest Self in everyone each other (Heinrich 2011, p.162)” because comes from Will Davis, a body “Countertransference and transference take psychotherapist and founder of Functional place as psychosomatic Analysis. He describes an energetic core, phenomena” (p.160). Heinrich explains her which contains the essence of the person, as way of working like this: the Endo-Self: “The ES exists before and is “My perception of my own bodily sensations untouched by disturbance, trauma, lack, and and images as a resonance with the conflict (Davis 2013, p.). Its condition is, psychosomatic reality of the client is a per se, unharmed, safe and sound; necessary step in the process of attunement therefore, it can function as a healing to the clients (p.163) . . . As time recourse in psychotherapy. In the light of progresses, more complex feelings emerge . my own and the painful life stories of my . . These feelings can reveal something of clients, a conception of an undamaged core the ‘true self’ of the client, which is Self, which is below every trauma, appears communicating here non- verbally and to me highly comforting. directly from body to body” (p.164). I like to end with Alexander Lowen's During this process, I listen for the client’s words: "The need for self-expression unspoken words or sentences, underlies all creative activity and is the communicated from deeper parts of the source of our greatest pleasure… the self client’s Self, for example: “Please help me”, fades away when the avenues of self “Go away, leave me alone”, “I can’t go on expression are closed. The self is any longer, it’s too much” or the simple cry fundamentally a bodily phenomenon, and for “Mama”. A necessary part of being able self expression therefore means the to listen for this unspoken expression and to expression of feeling. The deepest feeling is make this valuable for the therapeutic love . . . " (Lowen, 1972, p.28). process is knowing about my own character structure, including knowing my blind spots and my boundaries. The expressions and I believe that a Self, without receiving sensations may also relate to my own any kind of love, cannot survive. personal needs in addition to what the client is expressing. On the other hand, “it is also important to give the information in a humorous empathetic way and to convey it Olaf Trapp started to work with the body 35 years ago with massage. Induced by own in a careful manner” (Heinrich, 2011, personal problems and a job in a psychiatric p.172). hospital, he discovered the interrelation between Ideally the client’s underlying problem body and soul, which was the start of a lifelong is understood and disconnected parts of the journey of personal development and growth. He Self can be touched again, the process of a was an acupressure teacher for 15 years. correcting experience for dysfunctional Continued on page 137 patterns of communication can start, and on
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A Review of Eros/Power: Love in the Spirit of Inquiry
by Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
“What one sees depends on one’s worldview”
I’m at a loss. Struggling actually. I keep going back to the book trying to hopefully find some keyword or phrase, some vignette that will give me the story-starter I desperately need. I typically read books and thoughts leap onto the page. Not so today. After reading Eros/Power: Love in the Spirit of Inquiry, I am at a loss.
I’m sitting with a sense of having read I understood the reasoning for writing an intensely intimate portrait of people’s their autobiographies with their intimate lives dosed with a strong sense of really? relationships front and center—they offer Did they really not only live that but then fodder for reflection on how to look at write about it? Perhaps I’m too cloistered, sexuality and intimacy in their lives, at love too unexperienced, too naïve. Reading about in their lives, as well as power and how they their experimentation, the polyamory, the unconsciously created it, dealt with a sense mission to create non-possessive adult of powerlessness and so forth (though Bill friendships—open love and sex, non- admits at the end that he’s been accused on possessive erotic friendships, and so forth living with blinders on regarding some of his felt beyond my vision. power).
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“How can you cultivate more mutual, more balanced, more loving, more supportive, more erotic, more inquiring friendships?”
And as I write this review, I slowly one another or warring enemies” (pg. 149) understand more of the whole experience as well as references a leadership action- rather than being able to write about the logic that Bill found through his lifetime of parts. Perhaps that’s the reason why this work to be effective at “encouraging review is so difficult, why it’s more about personal and organizational my experience reading this book than the transformation” (pg. 149). The term book itself. I tend to write about the pieces “Workparty” in this instance references the while this book feels all inclusive. It feels reconciliation of two more opposites—work systemic, as if my entire being has to be and play; people gather with a mutually immersed in order to experience a shift agreed upon intention—an inquiry process within myself. Their stories prompted that allows for mutual transformation. reflection of my own, their questions I understood the powerful ways one triggered older memories recessed neatly can use this book when the authors ask: away, left for another lifetime’s pondering “How can you cultivate more mutual, more perhaps. I see myself in their reflections— balanced, more loving, more supportive, noticing how I dress, how I behave, how I more erotic, more inquiring engage with male friends (no partner in my friendships?” (140). life at this time so can’t go there) and what I expect perhaps, the underside of my Their response to this question helped actions and their reactions are more in my as well: learn how to listen to other people conscious view than before. My awareness and hear into them while sensing into of me carries a different perspective now, yourself (notice your body’s sensations); tinged by their light shined on self and make time to cultivate Eros/Power between other, male and female, friend and lover. you and your partner (friends, community) I think part of my difficulty also rests so you can transform your partnership’s in the use of language specific to a darkness into light together and liberate particular process that I’m unfamiliar with— the shadow parts easily triggered in not knowing left me hanging until the end relationships; and set up appointments to of the book where I felt it start to come actually practice listening and hearing and together. Although, I’m still not quite sure communicating with an air of inquiry— what Alchemical action-logic means, I do invite the other to share relevant materials, understand the use of the word Alchemist images or stories from their childhood that as used in the context of Alchemist are associated with the emotions and Workparty because they clearly defined the reactions they are experiencing today and word: “alchemist refers to the intent of weave back and forth until both partners conducting mutual social alchemy, within feel a sense of completion. I appreciated oneself and with others, to creatively marry the reminder to pause and breathe and the opposites (spirit/matter, man/woman, clarity in terms of the relationship . . . if elder/younger, theory/practice) rather than there’s a physical connection consider treating them as inherently alienated from holding hands, if there’s a sexual intimacy
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communication (but only once practiced in the art of verbal action inquiry). Bill and Hilary now belong to a Community of Inquiry—they have a committed group of men and women, all ages, who meet regularly and practice this process. They note that transforming both the self and a partner and/or partnership is process oriented as well as goal oriented. As such, relationships can offer mutually transforming power. This book is an introduction to their process. It offers a framework for readers to (a) learn about it and (b) engage in this process. As well, they have information on Hilary’s website: www.integratingcatalysts.com/erospower/ with meetings and workshops to learn more. They state that the purpose for writing this book came from Hilary’s self- reflection— “an exercise aimed at deeper understanding of personal development” (p.195). The book became a vehicle for both Bill and Hilary’s exploration and transformation in relating to men and women (and each other). Hilary writes: “I feel that the key in my sense of transformation in relating to men has been with a knower’s insight that comes from in bringing the receptive feminine part of having been there and seeing it now from a myself, the part most easily objectified by distance. The language is engaging, the the masculine, to a more active self- tone vulnerable yet not self-indulgent. sharing.” The inquiry that became this book There’s deep self-analysis in the story started when Hilary’s partner facilitated a telling, the replication of moments in life deeper conversation between she and Bill where they reached out or hid within. about their early relationship as professor There’s an interplay between Bill and Hilary and student (she got drunk at his home, as they respond to one another’s writing— stayed the night in his room, he way older examining the themes, the potentials, the than she, he with the power, she the outcomes from the behaviors, the choices student—yet later in life she as the made. professor had an affair with a student— They also offer further reflection using twice actually, with one young man moving what they call “developmental analysis.” For in). instance, someone writes (a third person The book is a mix of memoir and voice steps in): “In previous chapters, we analysis with an invitation for personal see Hilary and Bill begin to exercise growth. A man and a woman explore their Redefining action-logic and visioning Eros—guised at times within erotic charm power.” Though I have no clue what and sexuality—and the power that comes redefining action-logic is I can grasp the with it, how one views one Self and the meaning of visioning power. “We see the Other, especially when gender differences beginnings of this in Hilary’s commitment to exist. The stories are first-person present Zen in Japan—to ‘Redefining’ herself
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through the power of committing to a vision. Reference Visioning power entails the use of one’s Bradbury, H., & Torbert, W. (2016). Eros/power: imaginative, artistic, mutual-trust-building Love in the spirit of inquiry. Tucson, AZ: Integral facilities and disciplines . . . .” (pg.117). So Publishers, LLC. as a reader, I read their stories and then am guided into their professional exploration— how they see their life experiences’ impacting them then, and now. And on the back end, I gain some understanding of the terminology they use. Each section comes with an invitation: “Our aim with the book is to encourage depth of inquiry into the trickster domains of eros and power—of love under the sign of inquiry—with the hope that Eros/Power can flow more in all our lives,” which is followed by questions or invitations to do written Hilary Bradbury PhD, is Professor in the assignments such as sketch the details of Management Division of Oregon Health your own autobiography, letting & Science University (OHSU). Her relationships come to the forefront, and research, scholarly activism and examine the feelings of eros and power, teaching focus on the human and presence and absence, hurts and loves. And organizational dimensions of creating there are two interludes that offer extensive healthy communities. ideas for practice and learning relational action inquiry. They also offer breathing space from the intensity of the stories and the analysis. At this point, having completed the book, I am left wanting. I want to join a community where people are so aware and self- reflective they can co-create friendships that are mutually intimate and fulfilling (not necessarily sexual), where a man and a woman can be friends at the deepest level of Self without mishaps left in the corner to Bill serves as a Principal of Action create tension and distance, without Inquiry Associates and as a founding miscommunications that stir up old stories member of the Action Inquiry scattering their toxic waste on the present Fellowship. He received his PhD in tense with no recourse but to sit in the Individual and Organizational Behavior goopy mess, alone, lonely, a connection from Yale, and has served as Founder where one feels free to dress provocatively, and Director of both the War on flirt, skitter and dance as if young and Poverty Yale Upward Bound Program carefree and the other can appreciate the and the Theatre of Inquiry. He also taught leadership the Harvard feminine without seeing seduction at the Graduate School of Education, and at root of the playfulness but rather self- the Carroll Graduate School of expression. Management at Boston College, where And I’m left with Bill’s questioning: he also served as Graduate Dean and What would it mean to love myself, not in later served as Director of the Organizational Transformation Doctoral thought but in sensation in the body? Program.
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The Embodied Self in a dis-Embodied Society
Presentations
The Psychopathology of Embodiment and its association with Disembodiment and Reconnection Body Psychotherapy through Enactment with Frank Röhricht and with Genovino Ferri and Maxine Sheets Johnstone Ilse Schmidt Zimmermann
The Embodied Self in Philosophy and Life with Shaun Gallagher and Christine Caldwell
Symposiums:
(1) New Roses
(2) Science and Research in Body Psychotherapy
(3)Psychotherapy and Politics
Round Table Discussions:
(1) The concept of Energy in the process of Embodiment: An interdisciplinary approach
(2) The role of Embodiment in Prevention and Educational Sciences
(3) The common ground in Body Psychotherapy
(4) Trauma, Embodiment and Self Regulation
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For those of you thinking about combining your time at the Congress with a short holiday, you can contact the Prestive travel agency, which is one of the Congress sponsors:
Fotini Fotinou & George Ioannou
Telephone: + 30-210-3238201 Fax: +30-210-3236029 e-mail: [email protected]
Picture retrieved from: http://thesavvybackpacker.com/daily-costs-visit-athens-greece/
James and Susan created this website because they have a passion for backpacking Europe. The Savvy Backpacker was created as an independent planning resource for travelers wanting to back- pack through Europe on a budget. Their information on Athens is quite useful for folks wanting to see a bit of Athens before or after the Congress.
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The Embodied Self in Philosophy and Life
By Christine Caldwell, PhD, LPC, BC-DMT
It is always a pleasure and a learning opportunity to sit and talk about ones discipline with a philosopher. Particularly for us clinicians, the ability to scope out and get a wider perspective, use a more precise language system, and systematically examine assumptions and beliefs, all weave together as we invoke and return to our root discipline – philosophy.
In the Fall of 2016, we will sit together at representative of the field of body EABP in Athens with Shaun Gallagher, a psychotherapy, I too am interested in Professor of Philosophy at the University of embodiment. My two current research Memphis in Central Florida. Shaun also sees interests are looking at the effects of his work as cognitive science, a term that oppression on embodiment (with co- somewhat disguises the fact that his abiding researcher Rae Johnson), and measuring the interest is in embodiment. The bridge is physiological correlates of therapist/client through his understanding of neuroscience, attunement states. My background in and his ability to write eloquently about ‘How philosophy tends toward critical theory, race, the Body Shapes the Mind’ (Gallagher, ability theory, and feminist perspectives on 2005). embodiment and the socially-constructed nature of the body. I come to the table as both a clinician and an academic. I founded the body So what might be interesting is for Shaun psychotherapy and dance therapy programs and I to look at philosophy’s and at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, neuroscience’s various discourses about the and have taught at several other universities nature of the body and how it works, and in various countries. I am an active how that can inform working therapeutically researcher, and teach clinical neuroscience via the moving, breathing, and sensing to therapists and counseling students. As a body. Continued on page 136
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The Psychopathology of Disembodiment and Reconnection through Enactment
A Conversation with Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, PhD By Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
What would you say when the key words assigned to your address spark distress throughout your body?
Discussing her upcoming keynote with Descartes, the whole mind/body thing,” address at the 15th European Congress she says. “It is now affixed to all kinds of next October, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone experiences: embodied language, embodied shares her concern that the word self, embodied cognition, embodied mind. No matter what it is associated with, putting embodiment and its derivatives are embody in front does not solve all the currently conjoined with an array of topics problems, does not challenge the current such as mind, self, subject, experience, concepts. We need to delve into the bodily action and language and they simply create life.” an illusion of legitimacy, that the body is Her concern is so prominent she wrote involved in a fore fronted way when in fact it an article on the topic entitled: Embodiment is not. on Trial: A Phenomenological Investigation “The word embodied is a lexical band (2015) where she notes that “embodying” aide for a 350-year-old wound that started short-circuits phenomenological accounts of
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experiences. It muddies the concept of the body I have and the body I am, she says.
“You cannot avoid the tactile- kinesthetic body/affective body—the basic aspect of being a body—it is kinesthesia and dynamic. When you get into static postural notions of body, such as knowing whether “Movement is your legs are crossed or not, you are not telling us something about everyday living— this preeminently posturally-tethered body our mother is a dynamically emaciated body—one that falls short of being recognized as an animate organism” (Sheets-Johnstone, 2015, pg. 28). tongue. We Rather than talk about actions, Maxine emphasizes we need to focus on dynamic real time, on our lives as animate come in moving organisms. The lived body and subject body as a phenomenological concept is not bonafide, she says, though it is used by people all over, in all sciences . . . “the word and all this talk embodied is deflective, it includes the use of the body without getting down to the aspects of basic development, history, and about our evolutionary grounding in animate life,” she says. When asked about the first phrase of embodiment the address’s title: Psychopathology of Disembodiment, Maxine mentioned R.D. Lang who wrote about embodied and unembodied in lucid ways. In his writings, belies the real she says, he tried to anchor the relationship of the self to the body in concrete experiential ways, using concrete studies. “I don’t think anyone has improved on this focus on sense,” she says. “The unembodied self is one object among others as the core of an individual’s own being; that is, the body is movement and passed over.” “We have lost the depth of our connection to the body,” she says. “We are on the body.” an experiential being born moving. We are moving before we have language. A whole lot of learning takes place that is nonverbal that is the foundation of our core self.” “Movement is our mother tongue,” she continues. “We come in moving and all this talk about embodiment belies the real focus on movement and on the body.”
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According to Maxine, people over look and the infant recognizes his experiences.” what’s there—movement and becoming to move as the creation of the self. I move precedes I do and I can, she says. Our fundamental human concepts are generated by movement. Our basic cognitions are saturated in concepts derived from movement, such as concepts of distance. All distinctive kinesthetic dynamic fundamental human concepts: hard-soft, in-out, strong- weak, near-far, jagged-smooth are derived from tactile-kinesthetic bodily experiences, which are directly relevant to everyday adult perceptions and cognitions as well as infant perceptions and cognitions (Sheets- Johnstone, 2015). “We are not inanimate we are animate,” Maxine says. “This does not mean we don’t have cognitions. But, corporeal concepts are not linguistic. We have vocalizations but these are not linguistic in the sense of naming and specifying language. We babble, coo, and cry, which is all part of the non-human animal world of communication. But it is not a naming type of beginning of language that offers more basic fundamental concepts of relating to the world.” Reconnection through Enactment “One thing I don’t remember seeing often in early-life research and writings is that the baby also recognizes the way it’s Moving on to the second phase of the held, even by whom it’s held. Whether it is address title: Reconnection through held in a tightly and intense way, or in a Enactment, Maxine says once again it is a more gentle way and rocked, the infant is deflection. Enactment is not movement. aware of tactile communication with the Therapists are putting things in a package— world as well as movement. Vocalization is you enact it so you are all through, done. part of that world, it is present and “Movement is dynamic, reconnection meaningful. The infant knows if it makes a occurs through movement,” Maxine says. sound it can generate the appearance of “Our natural proclivity is to move. When mom, dad. This is learned, however, it is not someone is shot or has a stroke the first automatically known.” thing you want to know is, can this person “A long time ago I did some research on move? Movement is taken as a sign of life. the generation of language of infants and No movement and you assume the person is the first preposition they know is ‘in’ like dead.” inside something else. Where did that come “Feeling alive is an experience not be from? Well they are put in a crib, their arm missed. People don’t realize it, they just is put in a sleeve, their tongue is in their connect movement and feeling alive. People mouth. They feel these things. This who run, just feel great afterward. When impressed me. Infant and early childhood people are energetic (I do not like to use the experiences that are non-linguistic appear
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word exercise as when they put on music and drown out any real sense of kinesthetic awareness of moving body) they feel alive. Feeling an aliveness that is generated in Emotions are a fluid bodily movement is an important part of therapy.” phenomenologically thing Communication through Movement that move through us and There are also qualitative dynamics in movement: spatial, temporal, and energic move us to move. aspects. Our basic communication with another often involves movement. What if someone makes a slapping motion with his hand? Maxine offers. “It may mean ‘the heck with it’, it may mean ‘get out of here’, it may mean a whole lot of things. This is emotions move through us, trust moves different than how the hand moves to say through us, sadness moves through us, this good bye as well as other natural situations. is different from joy and disgust. Feelings We are attentive to dynamics or movement are not static, not indifferent, not a state of from other people and we take our clues mind. Emotions are a fluid bodily from that to interpret what they are feeling, phenomenologically thing that move thinking, and thinking about doing, and we through us and move us to move.” decide whether to back off or open According to Maxine, it is paramount to ourselves toward them.” recognize that the core meaning of being a Writing her article entitled, Movement body and being alive is moving. Although and Mirror Neurons: A Challenging and she expressed feeling a little bit challenged Choice Conversation, Maxine noted that we by the title of the address and by her co- are not born with mirror neurons—this is an presenter Genovino Ferri, who will speak important part, she states. “Mirror neurons from a theoretical Reichian perspective, are purported to exist and direct everything having spent time with both speakers, I as Gallese et al. said, but they are there sense an opportunity for a lively and because we learned how to move our self. interesting exchange of perspectives as They are generated on the basis of our own each addresses embodiment. movement. In the experiments with the Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, PhD, is an monkeys, they made mention that prior to independent scholar and courtesy professor of the experiment they had done another philosophy at the University of Oregon. Before experiment to measure the kinesthesia completing her doctorate, she worked as a (muscularly in those monkey when reaching dancer and choreographer. In addition to or doing something). Originally the authoring articles in over seventy art, experiment had to do with moving, to find humanities, and science journals, she has out what one thinks neurologically and in authored nine books, including The Roots of movement and it passed over to mirror Thinking, The Primacy of Movement, and The Corporeal Turn. She has lectured around the neurons as embodied simulation—the basis world about dance, movement, and on how to that we recognize what the other person is consider them philosophically. doing. Embodied simulation is what the other person is doing.” References “This goes back to our own kinesthetic Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2015). Embodiment on trial: A phenomenological investigation. Continental Philosophy development, our sense of moving our Review 48(1), 23-39. doi:10.1007/s11007-014-9315-z bodies,” Maxine says. Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2012). Movement and mirror “Movement subsumes our emotions she neurons: A challenging and choice conversation. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 11, 385-401. continues. “We are moved to move, doi:10.1007/s11097-011-9243-x
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The Mind… The Embodied Mind… The Enactive Mind… The Trait Mind
Notes for psychotherapeutic appropriacy in Psychopathology… and more
By Genovino Ferri
Some introductory clinical questions:
“When we encounter a psychotic state in the Other in the setting, which trait and bodily level resonate in us? Where is the psychotic emptiness? Isn't it also in the deep visceral? Which counter-transference and bodily level do we respond with? Is it the most appropriate and therapeutic in the Relationship?
When we encounter a depressive state, which trait and bodily level resonate in us?
Isn't depressive withdrawal also in the crushed chest of an unbearable Atlas Complex?
Isn't the persecutory alarm of paranoia also in the terror of being attacked from behind?
Isn't the obsessive person's fixedness also in the rigid stare of his unmoving eyes?
Isn't the borderline's anger also in the chin thrust provocatively out to constantly challenge others?
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How does the Other's angst from unsustainability in the chest, in dealing with life's difficulties, resound on our breathing?
How do the pallor and terrified expression of panic surprise us?
Which counter-transference of trait and bodily level should we respond with for these psychopathologies?
Are they the most appropriate in the relationship with the traits and bodily levels that underlie them?" (Ferri-Cimini, 2012, p.187).
Two Active Ingredients in Psychotherapy
A) Embodied simulation is “a specific proceeding from intercorporeity to mechanism through which our brain-body intersubjectivity (in a bottom-up, coherent, system models its interaction with the circular understanding of phylo-ontogenetic world” (Gallese, 2006, p.2). evolution).
In contrast with the definition of Simulation In this way the “trait counter-transferality” in Philosophy of the Mind, (Goldman, 2006) is outlined. That is to say that the where understanding others means putting appropriate “position” and the appropriate yourself into their shoes, embodied “how” of the analyst- therapist, functionally simulation calls into question necessary for the psychopathological whether intersubjectivity consists of disturbance and or for the specific trait- attributing symbolic representations to bodily level structure of the person being others and states that analysed are identified.
“Intercorporeity as the principal source of . . . "The appropriate Position is on your awareness is foremost, and forms a basis own specific personality trait and on its for reading the Mind of the Other. It is a corresponding bodily level, from which you direct form of understanding of others which can meet and contact the person being comes from within… Embodied simulation analysed, helping them to move, in thus defines an intermediate level between sustainable evolution, from their mirror neurons and empathic resonance” problematic trait and bodily level position (Gallese-Ammanniti, 2014, p.31). or, at least, enabling them to read it. The How is the analogical expression of the In the Reichian analytical setting, embodied position and it creates the field atmospheres simulation can be read with Analysis of the in the setting to permit evolutive insights for Character of the Relationship (Ferri, 1992) the person being analysed" (Ferri-Cimini, and, in particular, through the lenses of the 2012, p.192). Language of Traits (Ferri, 2014). Therapeutic embodied simulation today is It can, however, be transformed into fundamental in psychotherapy in order to be “therapeutic” embodied simulation, which able to draw nearer to and modify certain establishes relational appropriacy in the specific interpersonal relational patterns setting, using the sequence of Traits along (threatening, accepting, including, the arrow of evolutive time and the excluding) . . . which result from yesterday's corresponding sequence of prevalent bodily embodied simulations in the person's life levels in the stages of development, story.
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It should be added that the appropriate trait “When the action is performed or imitated, counter-transference activates “from the cortical-spinal pathways are activated... outside” the person in the setting and when the action is imagined, the motory represents one of the most important cortical network is activated… the action is principles in the negentropic construction of not produced” (Gallese, 2014, p.28). the relationship, which should be interpreted as a complex living system (Ferri –Cimini, In general, all body psychotherapy could be 1999). considered to be therapeutic embodied activation, but it must certainly respond to The relationship is an auto-poietic system the requisites of appropriacy—there must be born from intelligent structural coupling and epistemological, methodological and clinical from the traits of the analyst and the person clarity and consistency, because body being analyzed. Like a double helix of DNA, psychotherapy may well have a greater it will develop a negentropic gradient and level of complexity than verbal have its own character with its own different psychotherapy. stages and levels of organization. Intersubjectivity-intercorporeity in the Coming back to vegetotherapy, to be clear, setting and in clinical practice cannot be left I am speaking about vegetotherapy in to chance and must be intelligently Reichian analysis, which is a very distinct superordinate! branch on the development of the Tree of Vegetotherapy. Reichian Analysis B) In our psychotherapeutic setting, where Vegetotherapy is performed in our setting “therapeutic embodied simulation” is with two other fundamental elements: fundamental both to be able to reach the “character analysis” and “analysis of the Other and for the comprehension of their character of the relationship”. trait questions deposited in implicit memory, a new active principle is added – therapeutic I am speaking of the branch, which is an embodied activation, which in Reichian expression of natural psychoanalytical analysis is performed with character- evolution and which, having originated from analytical vegetotherapy “actings”, which Reich in Oslo in 1935 to 1939, it grew are ontogenetic and appropriate to the stronger and more substantial from the specific stage, trait and bodily level. extraordinary clinical contributions of Ola Raknes and Federico Navarro (1974), which In intelligent structural coupling with are clear in the appropriate actings for the therapeutic embodied simulation, it provides seven bodily levels. the opportunity for, even, body psychotherapy on the trait mind. The contribution of G. Ferri and S.I.A.R. represented another significant step in Therapeutic embodied activation indeed perfecting its application – the evolutive- “completes” psychotherapy, in the sense of negentropic arrow of time was introduced in its double directionality, because it activates 1992, which transformed the seven bodily the person “from within”; it is a levels into relational bodily areas and fundamental way to modify the actings into “specific actings appropriate for “incorporated” life experiences of the stage-structure and object relationships”. person, because it incisively marks new The majority of these are real ontogenetic experiences, which have been felt and are movements, which, in the setting, always appropriate to the explicit and, especially, communicate with the appropriate Trait implicit therapeutic questions which Counter-transference . . . “we were back in emerged in the setting. the analytical channel with the body included” (Ferri, 2012a).
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"Actings are therefore progressive and rising negentropically and to bringing specific to the evolutive stage and the bodily yourself back to a depressive position from level; they re-propose ontogenetic phase schizo-paranoid (paraphrasing M.Klein). movements. Not only do they reawaken the intact ‘“hows’” of the partial object The acting, practiced for 15 minutes. relationships, as they were when they were Repeated at regular intervals over time, they marked on the bodily level of the Self in that allow the person a new entrance into his time of that stage of development, but they own field of consciousness of the ego, in his also constitute fundamental psychodynamic- own subjectivity, and it activates the pre- emotional-energetic insights” (Ferri-Cimini, frontal cortex (PFC). Not only this, but it also 2012, p.191). regulates the appropriate distance for their his own sustainability; it explores the They propose the opportunity for a new person's dyadic relationship style and it prototype object relationship in the here and collects the possible projections emerging now, which is new in the how of the position from the depths of the there and then of his and the pattern, and is new in the renewed life story ... including, or excluding, mirrored energetic circuit moving towards eye contact ... but it also encompasses the negentropy. causes of the loss of the correct distance or boundaries in the here and now. The actings join the there and then with the here and now, the depths with the surface, The person will experiment over time, the unconscious with the conscious, implicit according to the ideal prescription by the memory with explicit memory and pre- therapist, with opportune oscillations, subjective corporeity with subjectivity. convergence towards themselves and their own nose pyramid, and the capacity to “They create new sensorial channels, form gather themselves and to return within their new cerebral maps and free the internal own boundaries, with the light, which is time trapped in bodily blockages" (Ferri – always motionless, acting as a partial, Cimini, 2012, p.191). stable, object which is present (Ferri, 2015).
A very elementary example to clarify Actings form, inform and reform the enactive embodied mind and trait mind – In clinical practice, in an approach aimed at they increase cognition and feeling, treating the correct distance or the loss of determining greater intelligence in the Self boundaries between the self and others, a Mind and in the subjectivity of the Self. possible acting could be convergence on a fixed luminous point, held up by the A Little Illuminating History . . . The therapist using a light-pen calibrated to the Boundaries Between Brain and Body sustainable point of convergence of the person, always within the appropriate Gregory Bateson (1972) considered these relational framework of the setting. boundaries to be senseless and made an excellent contribution: “You could say that “Convergence” represents an extraordinary the mind is immanent in those cerebral evolutionary leap in phylo-ontogenetic circuits that are entirely contained in the evolution, contributing, together with brain; or that the mind is immanent in those neopallial development, to defining psycho- cerebral circuits that are entirely contained dynamically the Identification-Separation in the brain plus body system; or, finally, from the Other in the orolabial stage, to that the mind is immanent in the larger man indicating the appearance of pyramidality plus environment system” (p.306). Gregory and to the arrival of voluntary-striated Bateson (1972) proposed the concept of muscularity. Finally it also contributes to
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Embodied Mind, which is today considered system which we call Self and which has a to be a new episteme! process.
Cognitive processes cannot be confined It represents the outcome of an within the brain – they are formed in extraordinary fractal property of Life - connection with and they are influenced by 'Intelligence'. In the diversity of its the entire bodily system. infinite orders of size and expression, intelligence permeates and reflects the At the beginning of the 90s, twenty years stratification of life, recombining at the after Bateson's Embodied Mind, Varela, negentropic bifurcation points of Thompson and Rosch proposed the concept phylogenetic evolution! of embodied and enactive mind.
“Even in human ontogenesis, intelligence In opposition to the traditional view of precedes and permits Cognition and it cognition centered on mental precedes and permits the I (Ego) Subject in representations, the embodied and enactive their emergence. approaches proposed sensory-motory coupling between the organism and the Cognitive intelligence is last in order of time environment as a founding element for and it is the most acute and the highest ... cognition – perceiving reality through our and when it is connected to the preceding continuous bodily activity. “Within the forms, it increases in negentropy, in Meta- perceptive act we can already grasp the Intelligence! (Ferri, 2015). meaning of what we are perceiving, without any need for further inferential of Having said that ... the mind of the Self interpretational passages” (Gallagher, may be read, in its self-organization, as the 2008). sum of the trait minds, which are stratified
and imbricated together, and which also Thus far, we cannot but greatly appreciate appear in the rait thoughts of subjectivity. the positions of embodied mind and enactive mind and we feel we should add that In Reichian analysis in the here and now we Reichian analysis breathes in this recover the arrow of evolutive time of the extraordinary line of research, but if we person, his/her evolutive stages, his/her pause to consider the derived concepts for bodily levels activated in his/her object the practice of psychotherapy “embodiment, relationships; we read them and we interaction and presence” we differentiate superordinate ontogenesis in terms of traits, and would introduce, for each of these three which is an extraordinary compass so as not points, ontogenetic three-dimensionality and to lose ourselves entropically in complexity, the new concept of trait mind! and we would ask:
...The imbricated sum of the interactions Which elements of trait intercorporeity- between the marks incised by the Other intersubjectivity are there in the here and than Self and the adaptive response of the now in the analytical-therapeutic setting Self generate relational patterns, which are between the two subjects? specific to the life story of the person, typical of the evolutive stage and are Are they the most appropriate recurrent state patterns – they define a psychotherapeutically out of all those which character trait ... (Ferri-Cimini, 2012, p.89). could emerge?
In Reichian analysis the mind is One's, it is, At the present time, which past time has in fact, implicit in the complex, open living activated and is interacting?
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The connection between evolutive Resource Reviews Continued from page 135 stage, character trait, bodily level This categorization is perpetuated by the current state and object relationship permits us to of education in the field of abnormal psychology. Most avoid squashing or confusing time in abnormal psychology textbooks are concerned with the the here and now, and it permits us biomedical while the humanistic, psychodynamic, to redesign the successive community, and family systems models are introduced entrance of the bodily levels but rarely discussed in detail. But in order to achieve according to the evolutive phases of an in-depth understanding of abnormal psychology, the individual; it permits us to plan, one must be well versed in theoretical and conceptual with three-dimensional precision, underpinnings, and Ronald B. Miller’s Not So Abnormal Psychology: A Pragmatic View of Mental Illnesses every psychotherapeutic intervention addresses this knowledge gap. Written for primarily an and it provides operative psycho- undergraduate audience, Not So Abnormal Psychology corporeal grammar to communicate provides emerging adults with a better understanding and work with the Trait Mind! of stressors, given that college is a breeding ground for stress, for which undergraduate students are typically ill equipped. Miller incorporates clinical cases, personal Genovino Ferri, Psychiatrist and Reichian experience, and historical anecdotes in order to fully Analyst trained by Federico Navarro, is examine different theories for a well-rounded the Director of the Italian School of understanding of abnormal psychology. Reichian Analysis (S.I.A.R.), Rome, Italy. The school is accredited by the Miller's Not So Abnormal Psychology is a push towards EABP FORUM of Body Psychotherapy a different perception of abnormal psychology, a field Organizations. He is a member of the that has been largely dominated by the biomedical New York Academy of Sciences and the narrative. This obsession with labeling and categorizing International Scientific Committee for dehumanizes the patient. “This person has OCD and Body Psychotherapy. An International this person has bipolar disorder.” By labeling a person Trainer of Reichian Analysis, he holds in this way, we radically shift our perspective and Training Courses for Supervisors in opinion and consequently ignore the true problem. Europe and South America. During his professional career he worked as Director of the Psychiatric Unit of Atri Hospital, Italy and as Director of the Public Departmental Psychotherapy Service. He is the President of the Italian Association of Body Psychotherapy.
He is the founder of ‘Studio Analysis’ a social-centred psychotherapeutic clinic. He published Psicopatologia e Carater: a psicanalise no corpo e o corpo na psicanalise; Escuta Editora, Sao Paulo do Brasil, 2011, published in Italy as L’Analasi Reichiana La psicoanalisi nel corpo ed il corpo in psicoanalisi; Alpes Editore, Rome, 2012 and in Greece in June, 2015; Eumaros Editor. He is the Editorial Director of the CorporalMente series published by AlpesEditore. Email: [email protected]; siar@analisi- reichiana.it: Website www.analisi- reichiana.it
Continued on page 137
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The Common Ground in Body Psychotherapy Modalities
A Conversation with Michael C. Heller, PhD
By Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
Michael C. Heller is against using the word ‘embodiment’ in every EABP conference title, and he is set to defend his position in Athens, Greece.
As many know, the words ‘embodied’ and experienced in the organic dynamic space ‘embodiment’ are everywhere today; yet, created by human or animal organisms, or some believe these terms are truly nowhere robots.” This term became fashionable on in terms of validating the science and the west coast of the USA, through the clinical use of body psychotherapy. The publications of phenomenologists such as body that is referred to in this expression is Rowland, psychologists such as Bruner, and the body as being the whole person, or what mostly Francesco Varela, who was a mix biologists since Darwin call the organism. between biology, philosophy, artificial Thus working on an embodied mind does intelligence and mindfulness. Many body not necessarily imply that one works with psychotherapists of the 1980s where how the mind connects to the material stimulated by the notion of embodiment, body. For Michael, being an expert on how which supported a part of their vision, and the physical body and the mind connect is a created a bridge between their field and necessary particularity of body academic developments. However, Michael psychotherapy. is not sure that these researchers had much esteem for body psychotherapy as it Working with the ‘embodied mind’ has presented itself in the 1980s. They used the been part of any sort of psychotherapy since term embodied to spotlight two focal points: evolutionary theorists (i.e., Larmarck, first, that cognition is a set of organismic Darwin) demonstrated that the mind is part cogwheels that are distinct but closely linked of the body. Michel explains that the word to somatic regulators; and second that embodiment is simply a new way to exploit these psychological routines are also the general notion that “consciousness is
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imbedded in biological, psychological, and accessory, but not a crucial form of cultural dynamics. intervention. The notion of embodiment was close to One has to wonder why this reliance on the preoccupations of artificial intelligence, the word embodiment as a validating factor which wanted to detail how computation and came about, and how it translates from our movement could be combined. This was, for historical past to today’s movement to form example, a critical issue for engineers who an alliance with all psychotherapies and were constructing robots that could explore psychologies. planets. Their findings permitted biologists, According to Michael, ever since the EABP physiologists and psychologists to become entered into what he called their more precise in their attempt to understand “recognition process”, meaning how to find how heterogeneous routines (thoughts, and use the right words that universities computations, screens, movements, expect and health institutions accept, the interactions, publicity, etc.) connect with general consensus is that including the each other. material flesh of a patient as a core Michael will participate in a round table dimension of our work may be a hindrance. on common ground in psychotherapy at the But this trend toward acceptance at the EABP Congress. His platform includes three expense of the material body in body foundational supports: psychotherapy may not fit changing attitudes. The university where Michael did Body psychotherapy is a psychotherapy. his graduate work (1976-1984) was quite clear: his doctoral thesis on nonverbal Body psychotherapy is a form of interaction would be accepted if the project psychotherapy that uses body never mentioned the names Wilhelm Reich techniques in an integrated way. and Gerda Boyesen, and if Michael never Examples of body therapies used by talked about body psychotherapy. Yet, for some body psychotherapists are the past ten years, he gave a course on Rolfing, psychomotor physiotherapy, Reich and breathing techniques at the same and Hatha yoga. university to first year students.
“Body psychotherapy has changed, Body psychotherapy is a form of universities have changed,” Michael said. He psychotherapy that also uses body- explained that body psychotherapists can mind approaches in an integrated find common ground without losing our way. Examples include Feldenkrais’s creativity and our language. In response to method, relaxation techniques. the creation of an embodied vision of the ‘Integrated’ is a key word in his stance— mind, Michael said, “The only real problem the use of body and body-mind methods are academia had with the notion of body justified at the level of psychotherapeutic psychotherapy is ideological”. For example, theory, models and techniques. Michael is they did not want to be involved in debates quite clear that simply adding in body on Reich or psychotherapy schools that techniques to any psychotherapeutic associate psychology and spirituality. approach that does not require the inclusion Michael hopes to pinpoint that body of bodywork is not body psychotherapy. For psychotherapists do not just do instance, many cognitive therapists now ‘embodiment work’ They have an expertise incorporate meditation (mindfulness), or on the complex intricacies that connect psychoanalysts use relaxation techniques. concepts and affects, with sensory motor But from the point of view of the core and metabolic dynamics, with interactive formulations of these approaches, using behavior. They also have and in depth these body-mind methods can be a useful practical knowledge on how to connect
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mental, emotional, sensory-motor and In these examples, the psychotherapists physiological memory systems. does not only situate thoughts in the organism, like Janet, when he writes that He offered an example of working with a the organism is a space within which “an client integrating free association, dream immense number of facts of consciousness” analysis, and physiology. Michael sometimes can be experienced (Janet, 1889, II, p. 16). uses a stethoscope with a loudspeaker, so He assumes complex intricate relations that the rumbling of the patient’s belly can between all the regulators of the organism be heard by both. Sometimes, when he and the mind, and is particularly good of hears a peristaltic noise he asks to the using his capacity to detect potentially patient what his thought was, or he may useful body indices as a key that allows him stress a specific part of a dream that co- to open doors in the vast palaces of the occurs with one of these belly noises. For mind. It is in this sense that body instance, an atheist sees a picture of Jesus psychotherapy is not just embodiment Christ in his dream and when he’s talking psychotherapy, it has something more about the dream his guts made loud specific to offer. rumbling noises. As I explored with the patient the impact of that picture on his breathing and body sensations, he admitted “If you want to situate the particularities that although he was a complete atheist, the of body psychotherapy within the field of child in him still regretted that the psychotherapies, then accept that it is the tenderness he experienced at Christmas for integrated inclusion of the physical body a beautiful image of Jesus in the stables was that characterizes our modality, and only a tale. We then worked on how he differentiates it from other modalities,” could remain an atheist and yet not burry Michael said. these beautiful tender feelings and hopes. Michael’s stance promises to offer lively Sometimes we can use the body to explore discussions at the EABP Congress in Athens. more complex feelings. A woman, when she I look forward to joining the conversation. felt particularly happy, would put her hands between her thighs and squeeze them as strongly as possible. We began to explore the possible links between being happy and Michael C. Heller is a USA and Swiss citizen, tensing one’s sex. We arrived at born in Paris. He is a psychologist who has constellation of issues. For example, a) not studied, as a researcher and a clinician, the feeling her sexuality when she expresses relation between mind and body. As a her happiness to her therapist, and b) researcher, he has primarily studied the creating sexual excitation in her sex when nonverbal behavior of suicidal and depressive she is happy. This observation led to patients in the Geneva University Psychiatric complex issues that had haunted her for Institutions. As a clinician, he trained in body many years. In such examples, being psychotherapy in Gerda Boyesen’s school, and attentive to body events may help patients has participated in the development of body psychotherapy with his colleagues of the and therapists come to a form of explicit co- European Association of Body Psychotherapy consciousness of feelings that were (EABP). He has participated in the creation of previously fuzzy, diffuse and denied. several journals in the field of body “You don’t need four years of analysis to psychotherapy, and has occupied key posts in do this. You can see it in one session, in a the EABP (Vice-president, chair of the Ethics Committee and Scientific Committee). He is on group session. Sometimes, however, it may the editorial committee of the International Body take years for a patient to integrate the Psychotherapy Journal and an Associate Editor of implications of what suddenly emerged, or Body, Dance and Movement in Psychotherapy. before a person can allow such data to Continued on page 140 emerge in his or her mind.
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Body Wise
By Kamalamani
I was in Paris on November 13, 2015—the evening when ISIL’s bombs and shootings terrorized the city and its northern suburb of Saint-Denis. My partner and I had spent the day wandering; one of those rare, precious days when you're lucky enough to be with the one you love and haven't seen for a few weeks, in a favourite city abounding with memories. We were in no rush—meandering and seeing where our feet took us, enjoying the mild, autumnal weather, mingling with other tourists and locals. By evening we decided to have an early dinner and head home. Thank goodness for the disappointing meal we had. Thank goodness for our tired feet that took us home early. Thank goodness that we didn't carry on walking—
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It was a solemn Saturday. I would rather have been home truth be told, under a blanket on the sofa with tea. But we weren't going to leave Paris, because it wouldn't have felt right (and look, we're still alive). The joy of the previous day was a million miles away. There were moments of feeling, what is it? Survivor guilt? We could so easily have been killed. Why not me, as much as why me? Acts of 'terror' put me in touch with that yawning sense of powerlessness. None of us are safe in the face of people prepared to blow themselves up for their cause. And, of course, it's easy to over-amplify the danger we're in, too. But people die and will die. They/we aren't just statistics; we're real beings with blood in our veins. It could be any of us: black, white, Muslim, Buddhist. My partner and I found ourselves wandering past the cordoned-off Bataclan theatre at dusk. We had visited the Pere- Lachaise cemetery, a trip planned before the bombings and shootings, and our feet took us toward central Paris, wanting to gather together. I felt none of the rage of the morning, but baffled and moved. The following morning as we read on the Baffled by the scene ahead of us: on one internet the official advice to stay indoors, I side of the road a media circus of was struck by my fury and bloody-minded broadcasting TV crews, vans, satellite defiance, quickly replaced the agony I dishes and blinding spot lights. On the initially felt. I wanted to get out and about other, a solemn shrine of flowers, candles, on the streets of Paris. No one would keep hand-written messages and people paying me indoors in some strange curfew! I'm so respectful homage. used to, and privileged by, feeling free. The look of shock on the faces of passers-by brought me back to earth, as did my deep fear. Later we admitted we were both scared getting on the tube, not least when two guys leapt over the barrier to avoid buying a ticket. They laughed and shouted 'allahu akbar'. Not terrorists. Two local lads on a tense day. Maybe messing about, maybe having a dig in response to the racism they routinely experience. I couldn't tell.
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A young man, no older than 25, in his hoodie and jeans walked towards the bank of flowers, stopped, and knelt on his right knee with his face bowed to the bustling pavement for minutes on end. His small dog to his right stood stock still. Reading Facebook that evening I felt my crushing limitations. Some friends were questioning why other friends were changing their profile picture to the French flag. How come, they asked, they didn't change their Facebook picture when other countries were bombed, like Lebanon or Kenya? They had a point. I'd already decided to change my Facebook photo to the symbol of the CND peace symbol in the shape of the Eiffel tour, which I saw, Sunday morning, chalked on the pavements around Montmartre. Peace is the only answer - if only we had an inkling of a collective notion of how to achieve it, let alone really realising that it starts in our own hearts, too. I felt the
limitations of my own empathy. I'm more moved by the aftermath of violence in Paris It was horrific boarding a virtually empty than in Lebanon. I'm not proud of it, but it's plane, remembering all those people turned a fact to live and work with for now. to human bombs 24 hours earlier. It was sobering turning up in an edgy Kenya, its I love Paris; I have friends and memories capital Nairobi having been shaken by here. I speak more French than any other bombing only a few years earlier, with language than English. Hell, I even dreamt hundreds killed and thousands injured. It in French once, a moment I cling to when was a useful reminder to hear the voice of I'm questioning my linguistic abilities. the Somalia cab driver: “Eh, the deaths are Feeling my limitations and lack of terrible, and the American government imagination and universal empathy has have had it coming.” Our/my western been humbling after 21 years of practising freedoms have come at quite a cost. loving-kindness meditation. It also feels vitally important, in the spirit of emotional Mulling over the theme of this edition of honesty, to know where I am, to face Somatic Psychotherapy Today: 'the myself as I look in the post-Paris mirror. It Embodied Self in a Dis-Embodied Society', I reminds me of the last time I felt most initially felt it was a gift in terms of having a personally effected by a terrorist attack, mirror held up to my experience as I felt in flying to Kenya on September 12th 2001, turn: horror, rage, revenge, terror, where I then worked as an aid worker. It compassion, sorrow, and a new stillness of was bizarre walking through an abandoned, not knowing (I even felt joy, particularly Marie-Celeste1 like Schipol Airport in arriving home at St Pancras station in Amsterdam, all the TV screens turned off London, but it feels a bit crass mentioning lest we lose our appetite for flying that day. that which I know, too, is a wrong view).
1Editors note: the Marie Celeste was a ship that was found years after a trip abandoned but still afloat.
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The weeks that followed the Paris valley of limestone ridges, pine forests, attacks I felt incredibly embodied and huge rocks presiding over the vista and disembodied. Feeling the sorrow of the pillows of shale in the valley floor. It's a heart and the size of the suffering in the place where my body stops and rests, as I world, I fully occupy this thing I call 'my' find myself gazing in awe at the vultures body. Imagining what I would like to do to above, the sky, and the changing light the guys with the guns shooting at the reflecting on the rock's craggy, vertical, audience in the Bataclan theatre I felt surfaces. It was hard leaving that valley myself tighten, changing to icy steel, and community, my heart open and full and dissociating from my heart or, in fact, any sad until the next time. I had a fabulous shred of warmth. A moment later I felt fortnight in that place, working with like- ashamed and a flooding of too many minded people wanting to create a better feelings to bear: shame, guilt, am I a world, a more embodied, related world. terrorist too, then? My nephew, lead singer Thus, my decision in the aftermath of in a rock band, and his mates, frequent mountain-living and a weekend in Paris is places like the Bataclan. (I do, too, as it to stay engaged, continue to work at happens, supporting them, but that fabulous, world-changing places like Saturday, it was them and the younger Ecodharma, support my clients in finding generation most on my mind). Thinking of their feet and the rest of their agency. I their lives being taken is worse than also want to stop and relish life, doing the imagining the taking of my own. stuff that matters which isn't work-related. At this point, however, I can't make sense May terror never fossilize in our hearts and of a distinction between an embodying or stop us loving and acting with and for the disembodying self and an embodying or world. And may our resistance be the disembodying world. We are all the world, resistance of a soft, open heart. we are all a curious mix of embodied and disembodied. I arrived in Paris having travelled from Kamalamani is an Embodied-Relational Ecodharma, a fabulous teaching centre and therapist, Wild therapist, supervisor, facilitator, community in Catalunya, in the Spanish and writer, living and working in Bristol, England. She's been a practicing Buddhist since Pyrenees, a few hours from Barcelona, her early 20s and loves seeing how age-old where I had been part of a facilitation team teachings and practices are relevant to fortunate enough to be working with contemporary life. She works at the interface of activists and change-makers. Ecodharma is body psychotherapy, ecopsychology and located in a beautiful horse-shoe shaped ecodharma, drawing upon her experiences of being a development worker in sub-Saharan Africa, a lecturer in International Development at the University of Bristol, her current meditation practice and being a child lost and found in nature. Her second book: 'Other than Mother: Choosing Childlessness with Life in mind' will be published by Earth Books on 29 April 2016. www.kamalamani.co.uk
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tone is solidified by Westland’s acknowledgment of the constantly fluctuating state of the field: some current theories must be “replaced altogether by more contemporary theory until this too becomes redundant” (264). Westland thus Reviewed by Sarah Sperber, Columbia brings the reader up to speed with the University current frontiers of theory, creating an informative and confident argument while leaving room for growth. Westland’s work rests on the claim that the non-verbal aspects of psychotherapy are The approachable nature of the book is absolutely essential alongside verbal appropriate to its comprehensive overview therapy. Throughout her book, Westland of full-spectrum communication within aims to suggest how a psychotherapist can different modalities. Westland offers ideas incorporate more non-verbal principles into throughout of how a therapist might utilize their practice in order to offer a fuller the non-verbal in their practice. While the therapy to clients. work does not go into highly specific detail, it might inspire the reader to explore further Westland effectively surveys the research within some of the topics touched upon. As behind non-verbal communication in therapy such, this would be just as engaging a read thus far. Central to this scientific evidence is for a therapist who is an expert within a her focus on the neurological development certain modality, such as dance therapy, as of infants, highlighting that non-verbal it would be for someone just starting out in childhood memories are held within the the field. body. Non-verbal memories continue to play a part in the adult memory and emotional Westland powerfully convinces the reader life, and Westland points out the that attention to non-verbal communication shortcoming in traditional Western is gaining ground within the field of psychotherapy for ignoring these powerful psychotherapy and can benefit any experiences. therapist’s practice, regardless of modality. Writing at the forefront of current theory, Westland writes with extreme clarity and she highlights just how engaging the topic of accessibility. In addition to the non-verbal communication is. We have seen aforementioned scientific evidence, brief how Westland makes effective use of both anecdotal examples are utilized throughout scientific evidence and anecdotal examples the book to give the reader a fuller picture to “make a small contribution to the of how awareness of the body can inform paradigm shift” (266) regarding non-verbal the therapist’s role. The book’s accessible communication in psychotherapy.
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Verbal and Non Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy Written by Gill Westland
Reviewed by Nancy Eichhorn, PhD
I read professional books with an eye for insight and an ear for style. The text must offer something new yet be grounded in foundational knowledge to allow an oscillation between reflection and absorption. As well, the writing must tickle my fancy—it cannot drugde onward with stodgy sentences burdened by $10.00 words and dripping with detail designed to show-off the author’s bookishess. It must be light, lively, sing a song that results in joyous learning.
Gill Westland’s 2015 release entitled, leaves aside traditional rivalries between Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in schools and modalities to convincingly show Psychotherapy, merits mention. Her voice that verbal and body techniques are felt personable, reachable, while necessarily complementary and professional, informative. I was fascinated interdependent systems.” Gill supports the by the data, experientials and practices, communicative musicality of feeling character descriptions, and clinical matched and known verbally and non- applications. There’s something for anyone verbally, as the experience is one—we involved in mental health care as Gill draws cannot separate the body from words on current findings from: infant though words can be void of feeling and development studies; neuroscience; various expression (rooted versus dead words, see schools and approaches; and mindfulness/ Chapter 4). As Nick Totton is quoted, Buddhist practices. As Michael Heller, PhD, “Thought and language are qualities of the author of Body Psychotherapy: History, body itself” (pg.127). Concepts & Methods notes: “Westland
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“Central to helping clients make sense of their implicit communications is guiding them toward a relationship with their bodily experience” (pg. 126). The book’s focus is to introduce clients and clinicians to the “how” of their communication’s presence, resonance, awareness, and the embodied qualities of our core system: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. According to Gill, Wilhelm Reich paid attention to the ‘how’ of client’s words— “Words can lie. The mode of expression never lies” (pg. 14). She shares her thoughts and actions/ reactions with clients from a reflective The book is comprised of eleven stance, walking readers through the chapters, which include the Introduction: experience within scenes as well as offering Setting the Scene and Conclusions: Going interpretations and reflections. Within the on From Here. There is also a glossary, vignettes she shares her explorations (the references and an index. The body of the process she experiences) and her book involves nine chapters: neurological vulnerabilities (the mismatches that occur) foundations of non-verbal communication; —she is real and true on the page. infant development and communication; Gill writes from a ‘bodymind perspective’ being with the Self and being with the to an audience assumed to have no prior client; verbal and non-verbal knowledge of the subject areas covered. communication—how the two interact; Her writing style is meant to be evocative, breathing and relating; being with to invite a subjective experience and emotions; free association through the embodied connection with the content (pg. body; touch; and using creative media for 15). While reading the clinical vignettes, expression. readers are invited to notice their own non- verbal responses to the text as well as their The Introduction own thoughts and opinions (pg. 16). Gill The introduction “sets the scene for hopes the book will broaden clinicians’ subsequent chapters” (pg. 22). Gill offers a repertoires across different modalities and brief synopsis of each chapter’s content, offer additional ways of thinking about which build one to another. A black and clinical work (pg. 19). A repeating refrain white figure (Figure 1, pg. 8), summarizes accompanies every experiential: “You might the elements Gill sees as the essential like to read through . . . to familiarize components of a non-verbal approach to yourself then practice,” followed by psychotherapy. Center stage are verbal and questions to guide the reflection: non-verbal communication styles. Above this are actions a therapist takes: talking to the non-verbal: choice of words, level of What am I sensing in my body? consciousness and content versus process; What am I feeling? and embodied relating: contact, intention, mindfulness, presence, left-brain or right- What am I imaging? brain based. Below she offers reciprocal What am I thinking? actions both client and therapist make: Observing, relating to and regulating:
feelings, autonomic nervous system
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Therapist response, and energy/vitality; touch; and expressive media: art, dance, and music. The figure offers an ‘easy to see’ synopsis of the book’s content so readers can create a mental frame to piece together the depth within each chapter. Within the introduction, Gill notes rapid changes driven by technological developments/findings from neuroscience filtering through to psychotherapy practices. Changes stemming from cognitive neuroscience studying emotions, new information about trauma and retraumatization and infant development contribute to a deeper understanding of psychotherapeutic relationships, which are especially important for nonverbal communication between therapist and The Therapist and The Client client. Many therapists agree that much of our respond to eye gaze, tonality, touch, and psychological life takes place at a nonverbal the presence of another attuned to them, level. Gill defines the nonconscious (outside meeting with them. These implicit (or of awareness) and writes that most of our procedural) memories (non-verbal) are clients’ non-verbal communication will be physically encoded in patterns of muscle nonconscious. She cites Allen Schore’s work tension, breathing rhythms, habitual with brain and body in relation to emotions movements, and general vitality (pg. 10). and non-verbal experiences, an essential These patterns carry moods and emotions aspect of therapeutic process—the right- that therapists can learn to witness within brain to right-brain communication that themselves and their clients to guide their takes place. approach. Gill’s emphasis, however, is on learning skills within oneself not as Silence is an Illusion techniques to be imposed on clients. Our primary foundations begin in a watery world that is far from silent. For instance, in Chapter 5—Breathing and Amniotic fluid carries reverberations of Relating—the therapeutic relationship is sound, movement such as the mother’s described in terms of breathing cycles and heartbeat, blood pulsations, cellular how they can guide our interactions (pg. activity; there’s a harmonic reality in a 135). Gill offers exercises for cultivating rhythmic world. Even in our quietest breathing awareness in psychotherapy that moments, our bodies’ communications involve therapists doing their own create a cacophony of sounds. We are born reflection, and working with colleagues to with our amygdala online (memory sans a learn how to see the other then how to narrative to construct meaning). These apply these practices while working with small cell clusters encode emotional clients. She explains that our breathing meanings to sounds, sensations, scents, patterns and their associated movements sights, touch. No language, just a sense, a are developed in ‘babyhood’ interactions feeling. Infants clearly communicate with our caregivers (though adult through non-narrative vocalizations, experiences can modify and refine these
Graphic taken from Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Psychotherapy by Gill Westland, copyright 2015, printed with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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“As the conversation unfolds, it is happening in different dimensions creating a tapestry of communication—through breathing, movements, sounds, words, and gestures—verbally and non-verbally. There will be moments of meeting (resonance) and moments of disharmony (reaction), and a return to harmony” patterns). Our breathing movements are as experience with clients. Developing personal as our fingerprints; the idea is to awareness practices and the personal notice them rather than fix or make them qualities of the therapist (i.e., intuition, ‘right’. Healing comes as clients simply humor, playfulness, spontaneity, creativity) experience how it feels to breathe in what are more important than any technique or Gill calls their ‘signature style’. theory (pg. 98). Attunement The skill for therapists is to pick up non- verbal signals in their relationships and to It seems that we are drawn to those who sense what is going on at any given synchronize with our rhythm. When there’s moment (pg. 99). “Much of the therapist’s a mismatch, people tend to feel knowledge that accumulates with clinical misunderstood and frustrated; they may experience is implicit, operates at rapid, tune out to avoid the discomfort of someone unconscious levels beneath levels of not quite getting them (pg. 148). When awareness, and is spontaneously expressed therapists are unaware of their own as clinical intuition” (as quoted from Schore, breathing patterns, of their clients’ 2012, p. 7, in Westland pg. 98). Therapists breathing patterns, not working either observe how their clients speak and what implicitly to match them or support them or their bodies are saying non-verbally and explicitly to bring attention to what is going keep the conversation going within a sense on in clients’ bodies, the therapeutic process of noticing their own internal experiences. is stalled—no healing occurs when there’s a disconnect. Being with clients also includes setting up the consulting room with attention to the Gill writes, “As the conversation unfolds, it impact of the décor on the client and our is happening in different dimensions attachment style. Gill discusses the creating a tapestry of communication— importance of a meditative practice and the through breathing, movements, sounds, ability to listen to the silence to become words, and gestures—verbally and non- present. The intention is to attend to what verbally. There will be moments of meeting is happening with the body as our constant (resonance) and moments of disharmony reference point for intero and exteroception (reaction), and a return to harmony” (pg. —the more we know about ourselves, the 158). “Misattunement in psychotherapy is more adept we will be at noticing our clients inevitable” because the past and present of as well as the back and forth movements both therapist and client converge in the within our interactions: present moment (pg. 159). As therapists resonate non-verbally with “I had resonated with and received their clients, their clients feel met, there is a Eliza’s non-verbal communication—the odd, sense that this person gets me. Somatic blurred sensation in my forehead and resonance, she writes, is a direct experience eyes—through my body non-verbally. Eliza of the client’s feelings, bodily sensations, had put her childhood experiences with her and thinking—it is not simply empathy (pg. mother into words and I had listened, unlike 94). By cultivating somatic resonance, her mother. I surmised that my odd therapists can deepen their non-verbal forehead sensations were something
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@Egal/Dreamstime.com-Buddha Photo like the confused state that she lived as a be Present, by Karen Kissel Wegela), which child, which was encoded implicitly in her is drawn on Tibetan Buddhist awareness and had been brought into the present” (pg. practice. Gill explores the importance of 105). learning how to listen deeply to clients and how to use descriptive language to create a Gill also steps outside our singular body dynamic client composite that includes their to establish a connection with a larger words, tonality, body gesture, behavior and ‘Presence’ (God, Universal Energy, etc). The so forth. Furthermore, her descriptions of essence of mindfulness, she writes, is to rooted words and dead language resonated stay present with acceptance of the with me. It is important to note when clients unfolding experiences and the ability to talk ‘about’ something (rather than talking attend to the stream of body sensations, expressively), which comes from a feelings, ideas, and imaginings with the restricted diaphragm, they are letting us possibility of reconnecting us to this higher know they do not feel safe and showing us power. While she spends much time offering what they do when they don’t feel safe (pg. experientials and tutorials, she is clear that 111). therapists can teach some awareness skills but let clients attend meditation classes, As we truly deepen our intimacy with yoga classes, and so forth for more in-depth language and learn the subtle nuances, we instruction. create a collaborative approach entwining bodily responses (breath, gesture, The Spoken Word movement), tonality and expressive ranges, One of my favorite passages involved the and words (said and unsaid). Gill also spoken word and emotional states and discusses ways therapists can respond. She recognizing different kinds of speech notes that it is more than paraphrasing our (beginning on page 106). Gill aligns clients’ words, which shifts the level of the patterns of speech with Ron Kurtz character discourse to one with more distance; we styles (see page 112) and explores body, need to use our client’s own words to speech, mind, inquiry (from the Courage to connect more strongly with the feelings
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conveyed and help them come into contact you feel?). The level of consciousness being with their dialogue patterns. addressed in our clients is influenced by our word choices. Words like ‘you’ or ‘yourself’ Being with Emotions create a more interpersonal level that shifts Chapter 6 offers an important list denoting clients from experiencing a concept to the requirements for non-verbal regulation thinking about it. The word ‘it’ is vaguer . . . of emotions (pgs. 162-163): it could reference feelings, movements, sounds, sensations, energies. ‘It’ is more Tuning into oneself, then contacting open for exploration because the descriptive clients nonverbal word speaks to the right brain Tuning into clients from an embodied where less conscious nonverbal aspects reside. The therapists voice is also received stance less directive when it is slow, musical, Keeping clients within the window of evocation. Simply reframing our statements tolerance (see Introduction) and being can have a tremendous impact on experience; for instance, instead of making with clients when they are outside the the statement, “You seem angry,” offer, window “There seems to be anger around.” This Using breathing and autonomic nervous allows the feeling to be explored as simply being present there is no ownership, no system signs to continuously resonate blame, no shame, no conditions, just with and adjust the intensity of the non- inquiry. verbal level of interaction Gill offers the importance of being Adjusting presence for short or long rein grounded and centered and for me a new holding (see Chapter 3) term as used in this context: facing. Facing, she writes, involves the eyes making contact “Talking” in words and non-verbally to with the world and the face expressing different levels of consciousness in authentic feelings, being able to stand and clients from the matter-of-fact to the face another, both to give feelings and deep emotional level (see Chapter 4, receive other people’s feelings (pg. 191). levels of interaction) “If words ‘reach us,’ they are felt as ‘true’, ‘deep,’ and ‘powerful.’ Words— Linking non-verbal and verbal relating to evocatively spoken from the practitioner’s link left- and right-brain processes more own embodied self-awareness—can enhance densely and to link subcortical and and amplify feelings” (Fogel, 2009, p. 248 cortical brain structures as quoted in Westland, 2015, pg. 191).
Linking thinking, feeling, and acting Chapter 7 covers free association through the body. I felt this was the best There’s a lengthy discussion about explanation and demonstration of Reich’s emotions and feelings including Jaak vegetotherapy that I have read to date. Panksepp’s “7 Basic Emotional From what I gathered from Gill, Reich’s Systems” (see page 167), the face and body method of ‘vegetotherapy’ is free in emotional communication, autonomic association through the body that works nervous system reactions, and the closely with the autonomic nervous system. vasomotoric cycle. There is also an We have primary communications/impulses exploration into ‘It’ language versus ‘You’ that are spontaneous, not controlled by our language. For instance, it is far more will power that are then overlaid by opening to ask, How does it feel? to guide secondary communications that manifest in clients into their inner experience without restricting breathing and inhibited specifically telling them to do so (How do
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movements to protect us from difficult and adult painful feelings. Touch can take clients into profound In vegetotherapy, the task is to contact wordless states of consciousness that are the primary communications and support not related to preverbal states of their manifestations in relationships by development. exploring the secondary patterns. Our primary communications and secondary Nearing the End patterns are part of our signature patterns The last two chapters felt fast. Chapter 9 of interaction that are formed in early offers a quick glimpse into creative media attachment relationships and are uniquely for expression, be it art, movement through our own. Gill shares ways to deepen dance, song, sounds, written word, emotional expression via vegetotherapy concretization, external and internal body adding the caveat that one must be trained techniques, reflection versus mentalizing, in this form of body psychotherapy rhythm and enactments. Gill ties in an (elsewise it will be challenging at the least). earlier discussion on preferred modes of According to Gill, all of the skills shared expression with Nolan’s five modes of thus far in the book are applicable in experience, function, and expression—the Chapter 7. She notes that in the vegetotherapy process, the expression of feelings is not the end goal but rather an awareness of old patterns of interaction and latent energetic potential (pg. 199). Clues are offered in motoric patterns and motoric fields. Paired movement patterns represent our capacity to relate (see page 203, last paragraph). The phases of the vegetotherapeutic cycle also coincide with our breathing and vasomotoric cycles. Touch Chapter 8 offers an interesting conversation about touch in psychotherapy: the pros and cons, uses and misuses possible. Gill’s main format for touch involves Biodynamic massage, created by “body-mind-modes” that are “interrelated Gerda Boyesen. Per Gill’s belief, without the and reciprocal ways we experience the proper skills/training in communication world, operate in it and express through therapeutic touch, the therapeutic ourselves” (pg. 247). process is stymied, partial, incomplete. She pg. 247). And the concluding chapter is a offers discussions on clinical touch, babies brief wrap up of content covered and and touch, and touch in our daily lives, and questions to guide further exploration. notes many reasons to touch in psychotherapy (pgs. 219-220) such as: In Summary Touch is the main channel of As a Western trained somatic psychologist communication, of making contact with (still a novice in the ways of Reich’s some clients vegetotherapy and living in a country/state where touch is, for the most part, only Touch quickly regulates physiological and permissible for those licensed to touch, i.e., emotional states nurse, massage therapist), I found the text Touch can be a form of relating adult to Continued on page 136
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Reflection on Writing Verbal and Non-verbal Communication in Psychotherapy
By Gill Westland
Photo by © Janice Alamanou
"Listening" to non-verbal communications that run alongside any verbal dialogue from moment-to- moment is commonplace in body psychotherapy. We are familiar with Reich being interested in how his patients communicated as well as the content of what they said. This period of his work has been carried on by those following in his foot-steps, and with it privileging the non-verbal communications. This attention to unspoken communications has been less prominent in other psychotherapies, but a number of developments— technological innovations, infant studies, especially researching real babies with their caregivers, and contemporary neuroscience, especially embodied cognition— over the last 20 years has widened the interest in the topic. Furthermore, awareness and mindfulness practices have broken through to mainstream thinking offering ways to stay with our wordless experiences, and not rush to curtail them by jumping into talking about them rather than being with them.
The germ of the idea for the book arose from an article on the topic of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in Body Psychotherapy, which was published in the journal Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy. One of the blind peer reviewers commented that the article was very intense and passionate with a lot of material, and that the paragraphs were more like chapter summaries for a book. I am grateful to this anonymous person. It made me realise how much I was trying to convey in a short article. I duly reworked the article; it was published and it has consistently been in the top 10 most read articles in the journal for the last 6 years. I felt that I was on to something and that non- verbal communication had a wider appeal than the body psychotherapy community.
However, having the inspiration for a book and writing it are another matter, particularly as I had only written book chapters and articles for publication before. An article is like a short sprint; a book more like running a marathon. Added to that,
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writing about non-verbal communication, we pick up information? Some days we the major emphasis of the book, is made more progress than others, at times, somewhat paradoxical. Non-verbal we became mired in words as we tried to communication is not easily conveyed in the articulate what we were really doing and written word. Indeed, I have struggled for how we conceptualised that. Giving some years with how to convey the nuanced examples, in confidence, of composite interactions that occur beneath and behind clients helped keep everything grounded the spoken words in body psychotherapy. and rooted in actual clinical work. So these Body psychotherapy, as I understand it, is were the principles; the difference was that not just non-verbal. It includes thoughtful I was doing something alone this time. and reflective ways of communicating with Next, I needed to decide in what non-verbal communications, quite often by register to write. I looked at how other using spoken language in particular ways. psychotherapists write and took the advice Nevertheless, I was able to put a of a colleague to be simple and book proposal together, and obtained a straightforward; I also wanted to be contract to write the book for Norton. The evocative. The book would be theoretical, work on the proposal took about four but I wanted it to have heart and feel alive months. That project brought my ideas into to the reader. I did not want to get lost in a broad structure and then each chapter an erudite discussion of something that in was fleshed out with more detailed content. practice is immediate, creative, At times it was like doing a jig-saw puzzle; spontaneous and intuitive. One way I did having the pieces, but not always being this was to start chapters quite often with a sure of the fit of each piece where. clinical vignette, written without much, or Gradually it took shape. I took inspiration any introduction and intended to take the about how to go about the writing from my reader straight into an experience of the work with colleagues in the U.K. when we clinical interactions. The theoretical had engaged in a project to develop UK underpinnings came later on and were Competencies for Body Psychotherapy. interspersed with how the psychotherapy We wanted to write competencies from a developed. Additionally, I wanted to choose "bottom up" place, i.e. from our personal words deliberately; words chosen because experiences of what we were actually they are hard or soft on the ear to make a doing— not what we thought we should be particular observation. doing to meet real and perceived For the writing of the book, I also orthodoxies. This was in contrast to looking recognised the power of groups and that I at training manuals, published books and required support to keep going. I was indexes to develop competencies, which advised by friends, who had already written came later. Initially we kept our work-group books, that writing is sometimes a slog and small. We had known each other for a long requires dogged perseverance. I assembled time and were comfortable with our own a small group of friendly professionals who therapeutic identities. This was important if worked somewhat differently from myself, we were to feel safe enough to tell each but would also understand my topic. These other what we actually did without fear of read chapters as they were ready enough. criticism for being different. We always I worked sequentially through the chapters, started with lunch to warm us up with some forging new ones, sending them out to my social time together. Then we reflected on readers, then reworking earlier chapters. a topic - e. g. what's the first thing we each There was a continuous process of writing, do when a potential client contacts us? How leaving a chapter to the readers, rewriting, do we think about that? What else is going then reworking a chunk of chapters. The on? What do we feel, sense, intuit? How do original book proposal kept me on track and
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As I wrote, I attempted to stay present and to write with embodied awareness. I noticed my thinking, feelings, sensations and imaginings as I wrote, and then, as I read what I had written.
stopped me from getting too divergent. I As I wrote, I attempted to stay present and kept the feedback group small and did not to write with embodied awareness. I noticed tell many others about what I was doing so my thinking, feelings, sensations and I could live with my project without too imaginings as I wrote, and then, as I read much external distraction. what I had written. In my writing sometimes a paragraph or chapter is more theoretical, I sought advice from other authors about but I attempted not to lose sight of other how to organise my writing on top of my levels of experience. Writing the client usual work. The almost universal answer composites was fascinating. I assembled a was that I had to find my own way, but all fictitious client and then let my imagination were willing to tell me what they did. So my construct the therapeutic process. As I way evolved. I mostly wrote in blocks of wrote about the detailed interactions they three days and preciously guarded these came from the immediacy of the writing and days. The writing had a rhythm to it. Day seemed to have a life of their own. I did not 1 was often difficult, and like warming up to seem to be able to pre-plan. Sometimes, I something. I did not know where to start, wanted to feel something different or could not get a feel for where I was. My wanted the client to do something to fit my husband helped here and advised, "just theoretical point and it would not happen. write what comes to you, you can sort it out later". I wrote and warmed to my task. Gradually the book was written and then I used a laptop and by late afternoon often there was the decision about whether it was had had enough writing, but I was also a bit ready enough. I recognised that I had been more warmed up and getting into the flow. I changed by the writing and would write printed off what I had written, went to a differently, if I were to start again. And, it local cafe and worked there making notes by was time to let it go; it was exciting, hand and reworking paragraphs. On day 2, frightening and I would miss the process. I was really enjoying writing and totally Now it is for readers to decide how they absorbed. I rewrote the work of day 1, but relate to it and to respond. elaborated on it and added in ideas; the words were flying. I worked for hours and Gill Westland is an experienced body then again my husband would suggest, psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor. She is firmly, that it might be time to stop as late the founding director of Cambridge Body evening came. Sometimes I did, sometimes Psychotherapy Centre, which offers individual not. At the end of day 3, I was ready to psychotherapy, full (UKCP recognized) training in pause. I had done re-writes and usually had body psychotherapy and a program of short a sense of where I was going. I jotted the courses, e.g. mindfulness-based stress ideas down, ready for when I resumed. reduction. She is an associate lecturer on the MA body psychotherapy program at Anglia Ruskin Then there was a pause of 1-3 weeks. I was University, CambridgeShe also co-edits the not consciously thinking of the book and yet international journal Body, Movement and Dance I was living with it all the time and it was in Psychotherapy published by Taylor and working in me. Francis.
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Reviewed by: Kimberly Wang, New York University
“‘I’m not helping this man at all. I must compassion for another, one must first be a terrible therapist (pg. 4).’” Tim cultivate compassion for him or herself. Desmond recalls, with great empathy, a Desmond, a student of Zen Master Thich fellow clinician’s harsh self-criticisms. Often, Nhat Hanh and co-founder of Morning Sun it is forgotten that therapists, in their Mindfulness Center, places equal emphasis supposed infinite wisdom, are themselves on the therapist and the client in his human, complete with the same emotional exploration of the following themes in long- vulnerabilities and self-doubts of the clients term treatment efficacy: What makes who seek them out. While its thesis compassion such an integral part of concerns the importance of mindfulness and successful therapy? What is the importance compassion in general, Self-Compassion in of breaking down the barrier between self Psychotherapy is especially memorable for and the other? And, perhaps, most its special emphasis on the importance of important, what are the ways and self-compassion for not only the client but techniques through which these insights can for the therapist. In its assertion that self- best be utilized and incorporated into every compassion is the key to lasting emotional day, moment-to-moment living by both the wellbeing, this book maintains that a healthy therapist and client in order to maximize therapeutic relationship is best understood therapeutic benefits? as a “special kind of alliance” wherein the boundaries between client and therapist are Self-Compassion in Psychotherapy broken down and one person’s happiness is approaches these questions with clear recognized to be inextricably connected to explanations, anticipating possible the other’s. That said, Desmond’s main misconceptions and addressing them head- lesson for therapists draws heavily upon the on with evidence from multiple empirically Buddhist teaching that compassion is at the supported fields (namely, those of heart of healing, and, in order to have neuroscience, cognitive science,
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psychotherapy outcome research, self- an automatic System 1 process – just as compassion research, and positive language immersion is the most effective psychology). Assuming no prior experience way of mastering German, so is a constant in mindfulness, the book moves at an easy state of mindfulness the most effective way pace, beginning with a handful of of making self-compassion an automatic foundational chapters, which overview the System 1 response to emotional crisis. concepts needed for grasping the material Overall, the scientific findings discussed in discussed in the rest of the book. The book’s Chapter 2 serve as the credibility- second half then serves as a practical guide strengthening backbone for the clinical in how to put the information to use. applications and techniques that are covered Chapter 7 discusses healing and in the rest of the book. transforming past and present suffering with Aside from its powerful integration of a compassionate mindset; Chapter 8 details spiritual and scientific insights, this book’s the challenges and possible solutions to most memorable feature is its compassion working with stubborn self-criticism and self for the therapist, the half of the therapeutic -sabotage, and Chapter 9, “Special Cases,” relationship that is too often neglected. offers a more detailed perspective by Desmond’s decision to conclude with putting the book’s lessons in context of the Chapter 11, “Self-Compassion Practices for possible scenarios of trauma, addiction, the Therapist,” is an excellent move in that psychosis, and relationship problems. Case it reinforces the importance of prioritizing examples with word-for-word transcripts of self-care for the clinician. In its discussions conversations between clients and clinicians of how to deal with “compassion fatigue and are offered throughout the book for burnout” and working with difficult clients, illustrative purposes. this final chapter offers helpful suggestions Though Desmond’s lessons are strongly and tips to the therapist for effectively colored with the spiritual teachings of navigating their own difficult emotions, Buddhism, he maintains a good balance transforming their own negative core between spiritual and scientific wisdom, beliefs, and managing their own states of supporting his assertions with the latest depression, anxiety, and shame. In turn, as cutting-edge scientific discoveries, which are clinicians learn how to motivate themselves discussed mostly in Chapter 2. While with kindness rather than with criticism and Desmond acknowledges the wide array of harsh self-judgments, they naturally begin available scientific research available, he to feel more compassion for even the most offers a more concise perspective by difficult clients. primarily focusing on the research of today’s All things considered, in its integration of leading affective neuroscientists – Richard Buddhist philosophies with evidence-based Davidson’s comparisons of the neural scientific findings, this book offers a clear activity in experienced meditators versus and heartfelt examination of the power of non-meditators, Jaak Panksepp’s discovery self-compassion in building the resilience of seven basic emotional circuits in the needed to cope with suffering and achieve brain, and Joseph LeDoux’s research on an enduring sense of happiness. Moreover, memory reconsolidation. He explains and it comes as a much-needed, kind and gentle reinforces the importance of these findings reminder for therapists to tend to their own with helpful analogies and examples that are emotional needs in order to provide generously dispersed throughout the text. improved service to their clients. For instance, an analogy of language fluency is used to explain how the mastery of the two system model of cognition (the automatic, fast-thinking System 1 versus the slower, more effortful System 2) is integral in the encoding of mindfulness as
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Jacqueline A. Carleton, PhD with the assistance of Dawn Bhat and the USABP Interns
Three core elements comprise may ease us into recognizing self-compassion: self-kindness, any areas we may need to common humanity, and improve, and also help us to mindfulness. Self-kindness forgive others for hurt they pertains to understanding have caused. Ultimately, Neff ourselves rather than being concludes that what we need to critical. Common humanity is be content is openness in our the frequently overlooked fact hearts and minds, to all beings that we are all imperfect and including ourselves. With Neff’s are connected in our approachable writing style, experiences and tribulations, personal insights and scientific rather than isolated and alone. evidence, Self-Compassion is an The third component, uplifting read that not only mindfulness, refers to being facilitates greater compassion aware of our experience rather towards oneself, but for all of than being in denial or human nature. Self Compassion: The Proven exaggerating our suffering. To
Power of Being Kind to be fully self-compassionate, we Yourself. (2015). William must attend to each of these Morrow. By Kristin Neff elements in a balanced manner.
Reviewed by Antigone Phili, New The over-arching theme of Self-
York University Compassion is “recognizing our shared human condition, flawed and fragile as it is.” We need to In the increasingly demanding step back and recognize that we society we live in, it is almost are suffering or having a difficult inevitable to experience time, and that we are not alone suffering, self-doubt, and self- in this struggle. To help ease us criticism. In Self-Compassion: into forgoing our impulse to The Proven Power of Being Kind judge ourselves, an exercise is to yourself, Kristin Neff suggests provided: letting go of our self- self-compassion is critical to definitions by identifying our improving our well-being, sense interconnectedness. We need to of self, and overall health. A be gentle towards our being, Neurodynamics: The Art of novice-friendly guide to our mental and physical Mindfulness in Action. accepting ourselves, Self- imperfections, and the fact that (2015). North Atlantic Compassion is divided into five we may not be above average Books. By Theodore Dimon. parts: why self-compassion, the in all aspects but we also do not core components, the benefits, Reviewed by Antigone Phili, New need to be above average. self-compassion in relation to York University others, and the joy of self- Beyond helping us heal and self- compassion. soothe, the benefits of self- While many fields set out to compassion are wide-ranging: it improve mental and physical
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functioning, Theodore Dimon naturally—that is, with a Holding Fear: A Journal. argues this cannot truly be minimum strain and effortless (2015). Wisdom Waves. By achieved until we educate grace based on our body’s Kaveri Patel. ourselves on the natural design.” musculoskeletal system and Reviewed by Antigone Phili, how it operates. We need to Neurodynamics could easily New York University develop a conscious awareness serve as the textbook for a and appreciation of the human class on understanding the body in action. In the same neuromuscular system, Fear is an inescapable realm, to truly engage in fostering our awareness and component of the human mindfulness, we must develop improving our bodily actions. mind—some avoid or deny it, an understanding and Despite the illustrations, the others may confront it head on appreciation of how action and text could benefit from in-class through therapy, but Kaveri reaction operate on an exercises and being broken Patel offers a more unconscious level. Geared down into sections, as it is contemplative route in Holding toward beginning and somewhat dense and Fear: A Journal. With the advanced students, repetitive. However, as noted exception of the pre- Neurodynamics is a guide to in the preface, gaining an introduction and final poem, understanding the principles of understanding of the body in Holding Fear is comprised of how the body functions in the way that Dimon proposes six poems, each accompanied action, how to restore the body will take discipline, clarity of by an illustration, Patel’s by directing muscles, and how purpose, and dedicated study interpretation of the poem, and to be mindful and gain control over time. a section for reflection with a of the body in action. Dimon, few questions or exercises for founding director of the Ultimately, Neurodynamics the reader. Holding Fear American Society for the introduces a detailed account serves as a guide for those Alexander Technique, presents of how the body works, and who wish to engage in the an in-depth review of the body, offers guidance in reaping the journey of exploring fear in a from the manner in which the full benefits of meditative mindful manner. spine lengthens, to the motor practices such as mindfulness. signals that tell our muscles to In the end, “the goal is to Patel offers a multi-faceted contract, to exercises in how to become more conscious in portrayal of fear through position the body. living, and anyone who poems that touch on a variety explores this problem in depth, of aspects such as ego, sense Dimon defines neurodynamics with real honesty and integrity of self, anxiety, surrender, and as the study of the of purpose, will find in the end blame. Each poem is psychophysical machinery in that he or she is pursuing not a supplemented with just enough action as a dynamic system. form of bodywork or body insight to link it to some One of the main systems awareness, but a path of ground in reality, propelling the addressed in Neurodynamics is mindfulness in action leading reader to draw further the Postural Neuromuscular to a higher stage of conscious connections that may extend Reflex system (PNR)—the evolution.” from Patel’s framework of central, basic organizing contemplations. The sections principle in movement and for reflection confront the everything we do, which allows reader with critical questions— us to move effortlessly while what does fear need from you, what do you like and what do simultaneously in control. People tend to seek bodily you dislike about yourself, and improvement and health why? Alternatively, the through stretching or reflection may ask the reader movement exercises, but to try a new technique or practice in meditation such as according to Dimon, the frequently overlooked critical the Buddhist practice of metta, component to such a practice of lovingkindness improvement is “an towards yourself and those understanding of how the body around you. is designed to function
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Written in the tone of “we,” Patel’s In her various works, Patty de new ways and focusing on thoughtful contemplations highlight Llosa aims to help people present events and our shared humanity. Through the cultivate a fuller, more experiences. In her earlier inclusion of blank pages between meaningful life. The Practice of work, Taming Your Inner each poem, Patel subtly provokes Presence, Taming Your Inner Tyrant, de Llosa focuses on a the reader to take a moment for Tyrant, and her most recent common obstacle to this reflection. Likewise, the absence of work Finding Time for Yourself heightened awareness: the page numbers contributes to the all approach the topic of “inner tyrant.” In de Llosa’s sense of being mindful above improving one’s life through terms, this refers to the keeping track of progress, and aids the reader in succumbing to the mental exploration and unconscious voice within that present moment. discipline. These books are not may be detracting from one’s aimed at a therapist trying to overall happiness. Though a Ultimately, Holding Fear is an add techniques to their certain event or situation may enchanting set of poems and practice. They are not distract us from looking insights that generate self- grounded in scientific thought inward, de Llosa emphasizes exploration, awareness, meditation, but are instead largely that it is crucial. Thus, in and reflection. Patel’s final poem is autobiographically-fueled Finding Time for Yourself every the only one presented alone, explorations of different ideas chapter includes practical without her analysis and questions concerning the mind and exercises, prompts and for reflection, but still followed by presence. questions for reflection. blank pages for reflection. At this Through her book’s very form, point, it seems Patel is bestowing a In her newest work, Finding de Llosa encourages self- sense of trust in the reader to Time for Yourself, de Llosa reflection and awareness. continue on and interpret the poem, specifies the common problem and whatever else in life that may of feeling “scattered.” She These books do not aim to follow, without her guidance. The points to the solution of living solve any specific mental poem, titled The Whole Universe, in the present, thereby ridding issues but instead give more suggests we are all working towards finding our purpose in this oneself of regrets about the generally applicable tools that world, and in the end we all past and fears for the future. may help add richness to connected—“the whole universe in De Llosa’s earlier work, The different aspects of one’s life. I our hearts, and stardust in our Practice of Presence, deals would argue that de Llosa’s veins.” closely with the philosophy and newest work is her most established traditions behind successful. The ideas with this concept of “being present” which de Llosa is most on a day-to-day basis, concerned are abstract and not including the Gurdjieff rooted in scientific thought: de
teaching, Tai Chi, Jungian Llosa’s recent approach of depth psychology and providing clear mental walk- bodywork, the Alexander throughs is the most effective Technique and finally daily in explaining the principles she prayer and meditation. Here in is advocating. her most recent work, de Llosa takes a different approach to instilling the importance of being present.
Not to be read in chronological order, Finding Time for Yourself, consists of 52 Finding Time For Your Self. reflections on a variety of (2015). Sussex Academic topics. De Llosa digs into each Press. By Patty De Llosa. topic for several pages, provoking thought about Reviewed by Sarah Sperber, different aspects of the topic. Columbia University The reader is thus encouraged to figuratively slow down, consider his/her own life in
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8 Keys to Forgiveness. instantly. For example, a study Emotion-Focused Therapy: (2015). W.W. Norton & involving an individual who is Coaching Clients to Work Company. By Robert contemplating forgiving his Through Their Feelings. Enright. mother is mentioned in the (2015). American first chapter. The case study Psychological Association. Reviewed by Rachel Vitale, describes in detail this By Leslie S. Greenberg. New York University individual’s thought process, and encourages readers to Reviewed by Kimberly Wang, New While the concept of begin toying with why they York University forgiveness may seem simple should come to terms with enough—a mere, “that’s their own forgiveness of Emotions add complexity and a alright” in response to an “I’m another. Along with these case rich sense of significance to the sorry”—this is in fact a delicate studies, concrete scientific human experience. But their process that is difficult to findings on why forgiveness is utility extends beyond this endure. If executed correctly, beneficial to a healthier self are immediate appeal. whether a situation involves scattered throughout the book. Evolutionarily, they have making amends with a loved This demonstrates not only served as signals, crucial to one or a complete stranger, successful examples containing survival that reflect the act of forgiveness is freeing real-life people, but hard environmental changes and for all who are involved as well evidence that forgiveness is a cue us to adapt our behaviors as profoundly moving. This truly liberating process. Geared accordingly. But what accounts process is both an art and a toward anyone mulling over for contextually inappropriate science, and once mastered, the concept of forgiveness, this emotions and what can be can guide an individual to a hands-on guide walks readers done to alleviate the distress more peaceful lifestyle. through each step on how to that often accompanies them? become more permissive, Leslie S. Greenberg, PhD, Robert Enright’s 8 Keys to compassionate, and optimistic founder of emotion focused- Forgiveness is the newest human beings. therapy (EFT), attributes edition to the “8 Keys to Mental maladaptive emotions to “[a Health Series,” of which As a founding member of the failure to] make sense of… Babette Rothschild is the International Forgiveness emotional experience” (pg. 4). Series Editor. Along with the Institute, Inc., Robert Enright In this second edition of his other ten books, this is a brief, is considered an expert in the eponymous Emotion-Focused high-quality self-help book that field of forgiveness, and has Therapy, Greenberg proposes a guides readers to easily been regarded as a leader in clinical model intended to help digestible information on a the scientific study of the clients “identify… accept, variety of topics in mental subject and its effects since explore, interpret, transform, health; in this case, 1985. In addition to his and flexibly manage… forgiveness. Initiated with a dedication to the field, Enright emotions” (pg. 4). Foreword by Rothschild, the is also a licensed psychologist book then flows through eight and professor of educational Overall, this book’s strength key points designated in psychology at the University of lies in its treatment of chapters, and concludes with Wisconsin-Madison. emotions as the centerpiece of an appendix followed by psychotherapy rather than as relevant suggested readings mere symptomology, allowing for those who are interested for a bottom-up model that further in the topic of may provide more far-reaching forgiveness. applicability than its peers. This
approach’s success is Written in an approachable communicated through the tone, this book presents changes made between concepts that are readily editions – most notably, the applicable. Several case addition of newly tested studies are featured as well to populations, contexts, and demonstrate how exercises are circumstances. All insights are conducted and to encourage then reinforced with an readers to practice them appendix of suggested
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exercises. 2007, making Strick a true pioneer in shifting opinion on While Emotion-Focused Reich. The documents Therapy is undeniably rich in examined are unbiased records content, it does fall a bit short of Reich’s work, holding weight in terms of biological depth. Of over the propagandistic and fifteen total chapters, only one, slandering articles of Reich’s Chapter 2, addresses the day. physiology of emotions. And even then, its explications feel While striving to find a theory oversimplified. Evidence for about the origin of life cross-cultural universality, the (biogenesis), Reich discovered different measures of miscroscopic particles that he physiological arousal, and named “bions,” which he neuroanatomy (illustrated by claimed played a role in LeDoux’s research on the biogenesis. However, due to limbic system in fear- his inherent claim that organic processing) are overviewed. One might be familiar with the matter can arise from Given that the book’s focus is work of Wilhelm Reich through nonorganic materials, Reich’s psychotherapy, this lack of his contributions to the fields of ideas were strongly rejected depth is understandable. psychoanalysis, political theory for religious reasons. Strick However, considering that this and social theory. He is lesser thus shows us how the cultural edition purports to be the known for his work as a backdrop of the time interfered product of a decade’s worth of laboratory biologist despite his with a fair examination of empirical research, these work in the field: his focal Reich’s work. Strick is not discussions, based on research scientific research was simply writing a hyperbolic already familiar to science in discredited during his life, and panegyric of Reich. Instead, he the many years preceding this to this day has not been successfully debunks book’s publication, do not quite seriously reconsidered. destructive falsehoods about satisfy. Nevertheless, Reich. references to other relevant James E. Strick’s book focuses studies are dispersed liberally on Reich’s work as a laboratory Reich died in prison a few throughout, providing for scientist in the mid to late months after he was exploration outside of the text. 1930s in Oslo, Norway. Strick incarcerated, in 1957. Reich wants Reich’s scientific work to did not live to see his Ultimately, while its message is be considered a legitimate reputation in the scientific not radically different, Emotion contribution to the field, world redeemed, yet readers of -Focused Therapy is well- arguing that he was discredited this book can be confident that illustrated and thorough. and considered a justice has been done. Strick Though its tone is primarily pseudoscientist due to explains to the reader in the academic and may therefore unrelated cultural phenomena epilogue that modern research appeal more to the clinician such as his sexual theories and even mentioning Reich has than to the average reader, the Marxist political views. Strick seen strong resistance, due to language itself is not so presents a convincing defense Reich’s tarnished reputation. specialized as to prevent of Reich’s role as biologist, However, by giving Reich’s access to all who may be using primary sources to work the credit it deserves, interested. reevaluate his work. Strick broadens the horizons for current research. Wilhelm Reich, Biologist. Central to Strick’s innovative (2015). Harvard University analysis is his examination of Your Life After Trauma. Press. By James E. Strick. Reich’s bion experiments. The (2015). W.W. Norton & primary sources that Strick has Company. By Michele Reviewed by Sarah Sperber, looked at carefully, including Rosenthal Columbia University Reich’s laboratory notebooks and archives, only became Reviewed by Sarah Sperber, available to scholars in late Columbia University
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practices such as yoga and meditation. The reader can be confident that if one method does not seem to be working for them, another path is waiting.
Rosenthal herself suffered from a trauma, and openly shares
her experiences of the trauma, the road to recovery and eventual healing. This personal aspect of the book can provide comfort to its readers: Rosenthal is a PTSD recovery specialist, but she has also
lived through the struggle and Not So Abnormal Trauma-survivors often advocates for methods that she Psychology: A Pragmatic become disconnected from herself has benefitted from. View of Mental Illness. their identity. Despite surviving She also draws our attention to (2015). American traumatic events, people the numerous survivors and Psychological Association. affected by trauma often specialists whom she has By Robert B. Miller. continue living with an altered consulted in creating her work. mindset, including aspects In drawing upon different Reviewed by Sue Roh, such as fear, shame and the people who suffered their Columbia University need for control. Rosenthal unique traumas and have thus posits that truly recovered through different Despite years of outpatient recovering from a traumatic means, Rosenthal asserts that therapy and medication, Mr. X event or series of events recovery is always possible. continued to deteriorate to the means regaining a sense of point at which he could no one’s personal identity. In her Throughout the book, longer eat, sleep, and walk. He book, she guides trauma Rosenthal underlines the suffered frequent survivors to reconnect to their gravity of traumatic situations hallucinations, and the hospital identity. and how great an effect it can declared that he was have on a person’s life in the “incurable.” But Dr. Karon Rosenthal draws a distinct line long-term. She does, however, managed to cure the incurable between coping mechanisms, give survivors an optimistic and even after a twenty-year such as eating disorders and and hopeful outlook in pointing follow-up, Mr. X continued to addictions, and true recovery. out how a successful recovery live happily without the use of While a coping mechanism may from trauma, using such antipsychotic medication. An help in relieving certain techniques as those provided in overemphasis on the symptoms of posttraumatic her book, will make the biomedical model led to this stress disorder (PTSD), it will survivor better-adapted for “incurable” fallacy: If a patient do nothing to heal emotional confronting future challenges in does not respond to scars and alleviate long-term life. We have seen how by medication, he or she is suffering. Rosenthal thus leads including a careful balance of automatically disregarded as a trauma survivor toward scientific discussion, a variety being incurable. The biomedical healing by providing practical of holistic methods and model’s application in exercises to guide examination numerous perspectives, abnormal psychology leads to of the self. As well as a Rosenthal gives her readers an obsession with categorizing plethora of thought-based the confidence, tools and and labeling, dehumanizing the (cognitive) exercises provided optimism needed for true patient and often ignoring the throughout the book, recovery. true problem. Rosenthal rounds out her view of treatment by including a Continued on page 107 look at Eastern-originating
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Caldwell continued from page 97
This discussion comes at an important time in our field, where we struggle to both honor the lineages we came from and at the same time challenge them, bring them into the 21st century, and find new trajectories for them that foster embodiment on individual, community, and societal levels. As a discipline, we are also challenged to integrate both scientific and academic perspectives into our work. Since both of us are academicians and lovers of neuroscience, perhaps Shaun and I can begin to map out some new territory, given the powerful philosophical foundations that our field rests on.
Christine Caldwell is a professor at Naropa University, in Boulder, CO, USA, in the Somatic Counseling Program. Her work began forty years ago with dance therapy, Aston-Patterning and Gestalt, and has evolved over the years into a form of body-centered psychotherapy she calls the Moving Cycle. Her work emphasizes the healing power of body narratives, body identity development, precise movement sequencing as therapeutic process, ‘bodyfulness’ as a contemplative practice, and the body as a location for social justice. She is the author of two books and over 20 chapters and articles on various issues concerning the body, and teaches and lectures internationally.
Eichhorn continued from 124 informative, instructive, and interesting. The concepts were at times familiar and at times an eye opener, a balance that allows me to breathe into the material and make sense of it all. Having the detailed and at times expansive vignettes created an embodied sense of being there to watch, wait, and wonder what Gill was thinking while doing, what she was accessing within herself to be present, and how she felt into her clients to support their own inner explorations. I highly recommend this as a textbook for newcomers to the field and suggest it as adjunct reading for those who have been involved in the field for many years— a refresher perhaps, a view, perhaps, from a new perspective to begin a conversation, and stimulation to foster growth that will allow us all to remain dynamic in our approach to verbal and non-verbal communication in a therapeutic context.
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Trapp continued from page 88
Today he is a Certified Bioenergetic Analyst (CBT), training analyst and supervisor, a References member of the Board of Directors at the North German Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis NIBA Davis, W. (2014). The endo self: A self model for body (2007 to present), and since 2011 he has been -oriented psychotherapy. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 13(1), pp.31-51. the President of the European Federation for Bioenergetic Analysis (EFBA-P). He has worked Heinrich- Clauer, V. (2011). Handbook - Bioenergetic freelance in private practice since 1999, leading Analysis (Reader)Inrig, G. (1981). Quality self-experiential workshops in different friendships: The risks and rewards. Chicago, IL: countries, and presenting Bioenergetic Analysis Moody Press. at international conferences. Lowen, A. (2004). Love, sex & your heart: Love is at the heart of life. Alachua, FL: Bioenergetics Press. His professional therapeutic focus is working with early disturbed clients, who need bodily Lowen, A. (1973). Depression and the body: The contact for their own growing process, exploring biological basis of faith and reality. New York, NY: the emotional background of physical diseases, Penguin Books. shock and trauma, partnership and sexuality. Teeguarden, I. M. (2006). The joy of feeling: Bodymind acupuressure-Jin Shin Do. Japan Pubns, You can contact Olaf via email: Inc. [email protected] and learn more about him on his webpage: www.psychopraxis-balance.de
Ferri continued from page 107
References Gallagher, S. (2008). Direct perception in the intersubjective American Psychiatric Association. (2014). DSM 5. Milano context. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, Raffaello Cortina. 535-543. doi:10.1016/yconcog. 2008.03.003. Ammanniti, M., & Gallese, V. (2014). La nascita Gallese, V. (2006). Intentional attunement: A dell’intersoggettività. Lo sviluppo del sé tra neurophysiological perspective on social cognition and its psicodinamico e neurobiologia. Milano: Raffaello Cortina disruption in autism. Brain Research, 1079, pp. 15-24. Editore Galbusera, L., & Fuchs, T. (2013). Comprensione iIncarnata: Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York, Alla riscoperta del corpo dalle scienze cognitive alle N.Y.: Ballantine. psicoterapia. The Iinquisitive Mmind., Italy, May 2013. Capra, F. (1984). Il punto di svolta. Milano: Feltrinelli. Goldman, A. (2006), Simulating minds: The philosophy, Capra, F. (1997). La rete della vita. Milano: Rizzoli. psychology and neuroscience of mindreading. Damasio, A. (2012). Il sé viene alla mente. Milano: Adelphi. UK: Oxford University Press. Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man Heidegger, M. (1927). Essere e tempo. Milano: Bocca, 1953. and animals. Torino: Boringhieri, 1982. Heller, M. C. (2012). Body psychotherapy: History, concepts, Ferri, G. (2012). Anxiety and panic in Reichian analysis. methods. NY: W. W. Norton & Company. International Body Psychotherapy Journal, 11(1), Spring MacLean, P. D. (1990). The triune brain in evolution. NY: 2012. Springer. Ferri, G. (2012a). Reichian Analytical Psychotherapy. Mandelbrot, B. (2004). Fractals and chaos: The Mandelbrot Electronic Magazine, interview with Genovino Ferri by set and beyond. New York: Springer Publishing. Marcello Manella. Moselli, P. (2011). Il nostro mare affettivo. Roma: Ferri, G. (2014). Una Persona, una Storia, tre Linguaggi. In AlpesEditore. C. Young (Ed.), The Body in Relationship. Self- Prigogine, I. (1997). La fine delle certezze. Torino: Bollati- Other-Society. Galashiels, Scottish Borders, UK: Body Boringhieri. Psychotherapy Publications (p.197-214). Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1981). La nuova alleanza. Ferri, G. (2015). Notes from lessons on fundamental Torino: Einaudi. principles of Reichian analysis. Specialized training Raknes, O. (1972). Wilhelm Reich e l'orgonomia. Rome: course in Rome, Italy. Astrolabio. Ferri, G., & Cimini, G. (2012). Psicopatologia e Carattere. Reich, W. (1933). Character analysis. Milan: SugarCo, 1973. L’AnalisiReichiana. La psicoanalisi nel corpo ed il corpo in Reich, W. (1942). The function of the orgasm. Milan: psicoanalisi. Roma: Alpes. SugarCo, 1975 (New edition, Esedras. r.l. April 1994, Ferri, G., & Cimini, G. (1999). Analytical setting: Time, Tascabili SugarCo). relation, and complexity. Annals of the New York Schrödinger, E. (1944). What is Life? Cambridge, UK: Academy of Sciences, 879. Cambridge University Press. Ferri, G., & Cimini, G. (1992). Psychopathology and Semi, A.A. (1990). Trattato di psicoanalisi. Milano: R. character – Reichian Interpretation. Anicia, Rome, Italy. Cortina, see page 33. Tiezzi, E. (1996). Fermare il tempo. Milano: R. Cortina.
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REFERENCES
Cornell, A. W. (2013). Focusing in clinical practice: Gendlin, E., & Lietaer, G. (1983). On client-centered The essence of change. New York: W. W. Norton and experiential psychotherapy: an interview with & Company. Eugene Gendlin. In W.R. Minsel & W. Herff (Eds.),
Research on psychotherapeutic approaches. Gendlin, E. (1961). Experiencing: A variable in the Proceedings of the 1st European conference on process of therapeutic change. American Journal psychotherapy research, Trier, 1981, Vol. 2, pp. of Psychotherapy, 15(2), 233–245. 77-104. Frankfurt am Main/Bern: Peter Lang.
Gendlin, E. (1981). Focusing. New York: Bantam. Korbei, L. (2007). Eugene Gendlin. (Elisabeth
Zinchitz, Trans.). Unpublished manuscript. From Gendlin, E. (1996). Focusing-oriented psychotherapy. http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/ New York: Guilford. gol_2181.html
Gendlin, E. (2004). The new phenomenology of Kurtz, R. (1997). Body-centered psychotherapy: The carrying forward. Continental Philosophy Review, Hakomi method. Mendocino, CA: LifeRhythm. 37(1), 127-151.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and Gendlin, E. (2009). We can think with the implicit, as the body: A sensorimotor approach to well as with fully formed concepts. In Karl psychotherapy. New York: W. W. Norton & Leidlmair (Ed.), After cognitivism: A reassessment Company. of cognitive science and philosophy. Springer. pp.
147-161. Rogers, C. (1961). On becoming a person. Boston,
MA: Houghton-Mifflin. Gendlin, E. (2012). Implicit precision. In Z. Radman
(Ed.), Knowing without thinking: The theory of All Gendlin’s papers are collected online in the Gendlin the background in philosophy of mind, Online Library: https://www.focusing.org/gendlin Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2012).
Ure continued from page 77 workshops locally and internationally. She has a full time private practice in a lovely cottage in Lowen, A. (1993). Sexuality: from Reich to the Gloucester, MA, surrounded by her gardens. She present. Clinical Journal of the International works primarily with adults. She has had the Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis 5(2), 3 - 8 good fortune of being involved with Lowen, A. (1977). The way to vibrant health: A Bioenergetics since 1987, when she was looking manual of Bioenergetic exercises. NY, NY: The for a body oriented therapist and a path in life. International Institute of Bioenergetic Analysis. She has taught at Salem State University. Magon, N., & Kalra, S. (2011). The orgasmic history
of oxytocin: Love, lust, and labor. Indian Journal References of Endocrinology Metabolis 15(3), S156-S161. doi: 10.4103/2230-8210.84851 (retrieved from Berceli, D. (2005). Trauma releasing exercises (TRE): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ A revolutionary new method for stress/trauma PMC3183515/) recovery. BookSurge, LLC: www.booksurge.com. Reich, W. (1973). The function of the orgasm: Sex- economic problems of biological energy. Frank, M. (1993). Orgastic potency: Fact or fiction? (translated by Vincent R. Carfagno) NY: Farrar, Clinical Journal of the International Institute for Straus, and Giroux. Retrieved from iBooks. Bioenergetic Analysis 5(2), 9 - 17. https://itun.es/us/IRbGN.l Helfaer, P. (1998). Sex and self-respect: The quest Shapiro, B. (1993). Healing the sexual split between for personal fulfillment. Westport, CT: Praeger tenderness and aggression. Clinical Journal of the Publishers. International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis 5 (2), 30 - 35.
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Gray continued from page 51 Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated recommendations. with motivation, productivity (drive) and Some sources recommend focus (concentration). It is in charge of our phenylethylamine but it is considered pleasure reward system and allows feelings useless by others because once it reaches of enjoyment, bliss, and euphoria. Too little the brain the half-life is 30 seconds. And 5- in the system is seen as a lack of zest for HTP, while used to boost serotonin, in turn, life. Low dopamine levels are associated depletes dopamine (nor should it be taken with a lack of motivation, fatigue, addictive more than a few months regardless). behavior, mood swings, memory loss, sleep problems, low libido, apathy, and Gaba is a non-essential amino acid found in procrastination. the brain and eyes. People deficient in This neurotransmitter dopamine often works to inhibit the rely on caffeine, number of neurons sugar and other firing in the brain, stimulates to get which in turn helps through the day. reduce stress and tension and promote It is made from relaxation. Lower the amino acid levels of gaba are tyrosine, which is associated with naturally occurring anxiety, chronic pain, in many sources epilepsy and mood such as: animal disorders. It is found products; naturally in fruits, almonds; apples; vegetables, teas and avocado; red wine. bananas; beets; fava beans; Serotonin (5-HT) is a caffeine; neurotransmitter chocolate; derived from oatmeal; green tea; lima beans. tryptophan and involved in appetite, digestion, sleep, Foods that are high in natural probiotics depression, memory, social behavior, and increase natural dopamine production mood balance. It is manufactured in the including Kefir, raw sauerkraut, and yogurt. brain and the intestines with 80-90% found Healthy levels of intestinal flora impact the in the gastrointestinal tract. Many people production of neurotransmitters; whereas with depression seek out SSRIs and other an overabundance of bad bacteria leaves antidepressants to increase their serotonin toxic byproducts that lower dopamine levels. Alternative ways to increase levels. Supplements commonly used include serotonin in the human brain include light L-Theanine (found in green tea) and L- therapy, exercise, and diet though only Tyrosine in the form of acetyl-l-tyrosine for purified tryptophan increases brain better absorption. Exercise, mediation, serotonin not foods containing it (i.e. listening to music, and making sure you turkey, bananas)—it does not cross the have plenty of vitamin D3, magnesium and blood brain barrier (Young, 2007). omega three essential fatty acids are also
Image retrieved from http://michaelruscio.blogspot.com/2011/09/hey.html. For more information visit Dr. Michael Ruscio at http://drruscio.com/
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Sanchez continued from page 59
References
Blakeslee, S., & Blakeslee, M. (2007). The body has a Rolf, I. P. (1977). Rolfing: Reestablishing the natural mind of its own: How body maps in your brain alignment and structural integration of the human help you do (almost) everything better. NY: body for vitality and well-being. Rochester, Random House. Vermont: Healing Arts Press. Bristol, A. S., Kaufman, J. C., & Vartanian, O. (Eds.). (2013). Neuroscience of creativity. Cambridge, Siegel, D. J. (2006). An interpersonal neurobiology MA: MIT Press approach to psychotherapy: Awareness, mirror neurons, and neuroplasticity in the development of Feldman, D. H., Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Gardner, H well-being. Psychiatric Annals, 36(4), 248-256. (1994). Changing the world: A framework for the study of creativity. 1994. Westport, CT: Praeger Siegel, D. J. (2010). The complexity choir: The eight domains of self-integration. Psychotherapy Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Networker, January/February 2010, 46-61. flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. NY: Basic Books.
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He is now psychotherapist and supervisor in Lausanne, Switzerland, while continuing to teach and publish at an international level. He has also published a volume on the history, concepts and methods in body psychotherapy, which has been published in French, English and German. He publishes and teaches regularly on clinical and research issues related to body and mind.
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Each issue of Somatic Psychotherapy Today takes hundreds of hours of time, thought, resources and love. If you find any joy and stimulation here, any educational merit, any clinical application, please consider becoming a member of the SPT community and support our publication with a recurring monthly contribution. You can also become a one-time paying patron or sponsor with a single donation. All contributions must be in U. S. dollars. We welcome individual members as well as organizations wanting to pledge a higher level of support in return for space on our website, on our Facebook page, and in the pages of our magazine.
For information and to contribute please visit our website: www.SomaticPsychotherapyToday.com or contact our Editor-in-Chief, Nancy Eichhorn, PhD at [email protected].
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Somatic Psychotherapy Today
Trending Somatic Practices Influencing Our Field Today
An invitation to write for us, with us, with support along the way. Your writing can contribute to and enrich the ‘body’ of critical and reflective content, as well as to the clinical expertise, in the 'field' of body psychotherapy.
Whom can you write for?
We suggest that – for a professional article – you consider:
The EABP/USABP peer-reviewed International Body Psychotherapy Journal (for original work only): www.ibpj.org
The peer-reviewed journal of Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy (for original work only): www.tandfonline.com/toc/tbmd20/current#.VBfpFS6wJRU
Or (for German authors) körper – tanz – bewegung: Zeitschrift für Körperpsychotherapie und Kreativtherapie: www.reinhardt-verlag.de/de/zeitschrift/51830
(You will find the necessary “instructions for authors” on their various websites.)
Or: for something a bit more conversational: Somatic Psychotherapy Today: https:// www.SomaticPsychotherapyToday.com
Or: Something for a newsletter of your particular professional association, modality association, or national association in psychotherapy;
Or: A comment or a thread in one of the Somatic Perspectives LinkedIn group discussions, facilitated by Serge Prengel: www.linkedin.somaticperspectives.com
Or, possibly, a chapter for an edited book, on a particular theme, possibly like one of the series being published by Body Psychotherapy Publications (BPP): www.bodypsychotherapypublications.com.
Or: Something to be published somewhere else, at some other time, in a different medium; or for a personal internet blog; or . . . maybe just for your personal journal.
What can you write about?
You can write about attending a recent Congress, or seminar, or about attending a different event; - or about your student thesis; - or your experience of writing your student thesis; - or a special or particularly interesting case history; - or an aspect of your personal therapy; - or about working with a particular client group; - or about a development of theory or practice; or - even about your reflections on the field of Body Psychotherapy.
How to get started writing professionally?
There is an article in the journal of Body, Movement & Dance in Psychotherapy www.tandfonline.com/doi/ full/10.1080/17432979.2010.530060#.VBfsNC6wJRU (You can also find a free copy here.)
And there are some recent guidelines about how to write a professional Body Psychotherapy Case Study: www.eabp.org/ research-case-study-guidelines.php.
There are also many articles on the Internet (in different languages) about how to write.
If you want any further assistance with where to publish, or with the process of editing, or re-editing, or with the complications of the publication process, the following people may be able to offer you some help. They are all professional body psychotherapists, editors and writers:
Nancy Eichhorn: [email protected] Jacqueline Carleton: [email protected]
Gill Westland: [email protected] Jennifer Tantia: [email protected]
Courtenay Young: [email protected]
Sincerely,
EABP Publications Committee
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INTERNATIONAL BODY PSYCHOTHERAPY JOURNAL THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SOMATIC PRAXIS INCORPORATING US ASSOCIATION FOR BODY PSYCHOTHERAPY JOURNAL volume fourteen ● number two ● fall 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL Jacqueline A. Carleton
POEMS A World Apart by Marcel A. Duclos Manuel de l'enfant trouvé—mémoire The Foundling's Handbook—Memory by Salita S. Bryant
ARTICLES
Embodied Clinical Truths by Terry Marks-Tarlow The Return to the Self: A Self Oriented Theory of Development and Psychotherapy by Will Davis Research 101 for Somatic Psychotherapists: Cultivating a Research Mind by Christine Caldwell & Rae Johnson
Let’s Face the Music and Dance: Working with Eroticism in Relational Body Psychotherapy: The Male Client and Female Therapist Dyad by Danielle Tanner
Relational Body Psychotherapy (Or Relational Somatic Psychology by Aline LaPierre
Held Experience: Using Mindfulness in Psychotherapy to Facilitate Deeper Psychological Repair by Shai Lavie
Transcultural Case Study, First Interview with a Chinese Client by Ulrich Sollmann & Wentian Li and Translated by Elizabeth Marshall
Felt-Work: Interview with Hilde Hendriks by Jill van der Aa
The cover image is entitled “Earth” created by Hilde Hendriks
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